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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 





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MILK AND MEAT 



TWENTY-FOUR SERMONS 



/ 

A. C. DIXON 



PASTOR OF THE HANSON PLACE BAPTIST CHURCH 
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK 



" As new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word, 
that ye may grow thereby." I. Peter 2 : 2. 

" But strong- meat belongeth to them that are of full age." 

Hebrews 5 : 14. 



NEW YORK 
THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO. 

740 and 742 Broadway 



JUIV 22 \%\ 






1 






L f cONOR E89 
iwASHlHOTON] 



Copyright, 1893, 

BY 

The Baker & Taylor Co. 



ROBERT DRUMMOND, ELECTROTYPER AND PRINTER, NEW YORK. 



TO 

&U tofjo lobe tfie ILortr Jesus (Htf)viut 

AND HIS BOOK. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. The New Birth . . i 

II. The Way and Work of Life 18 

III. Spiritual Sleep 28 

IV. How to Save the City 39 

V. The Gospel Feast 52 

VI. The Revival We Need 65 

VII. An Unfortunate Marriage 77 

VIII. The Blessedness of Giving 87 

IX. Comfort for the Weak 96 

X. Stirring the Nest 112 

XI. Perennial Easter 120 

XII. Chariots and Mantles 133 

XIII. The Unfailing Barrel and Cruse .... 144 

XIV. Treasures in Heaven 150 

XV. Shadow and Substance 161 

XVI. Discipleship 173 

XVII. Constraining Love 185 

XVIII. Pure Religion 197 

XIX. A Growing Faith 207 

XX. Dew and Lion 223 

XXI. Angels and Hornets 233 

XXII. Voices from Calvary 245 

XXIII. Christ's Earthly Glory 254 

XXIV. God's Ideal of Character 260 



MILK AND MEAT. 



i. 

THE NEW BIRTH. 

" Marvel not that 1 said unto thee, Ye must be borr 
again." — John 3 : 7. 

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, 
even so must the Son of man be lifted up : that whoso- 
ever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal 
life." — John 3 : 14, 15. 

THE how of everything is mysterious. The 
" must be" of everything is plain. I do not 
know how fire burns, but I know that fire 
must burn if the world is to be warmed. 

I do not know how corn and cotton grow ; 
but I know that corn and cotton must grow 
if the world is to be fed and clothed. I do 
not know how taking food makes my blood 



Milk and Meat. 

red and gives strength and vitality to nerve 
and muscle ; but I know that I must take 
food if I would live. I do not know how I 
am born again ; but I know that I must be 
if I ever get to Heaven. " Marvel, Xicode- 
mus. at the how just as much as you please; 
it is like the wind blowing. Listen ! You can 
hear the sound in the trees, but you know 
not whence it cometh, or whither it goeth. 
Wonder at the how, but wonder not at 
the ' must be.' You cannot enjoy Heaven, 
unless you are born again ; you are not fitted 
for the place." Wicked men do not like 
Christian company here and they will not like 
it a whit better in Heaven. They do not like 
to be where Christ is talked about, His praises 
sung, and His will obeyed ; and if they 
should go to Heaven, where nothing else is 
done, they would feel very miserable. 

On the Bothnia, in mid- Atlantic, there were 
three hundred delegates going to the Sunday- 
school Convention in London. Mr. Blake, 
ut Chicago, put a great map before the 
delegates, representing the resurrection of 
Christ, and its relations to history and doc- 
trine. A Jew, one of the passengers, as soon 



The New Birth. 3 

as he saw the name of Christ and the res- 
urrection, began to grow red in the face, and 
went bustling to the captain to say that it 
was an insult to him and his people. Now, 
suppose that Jew, just as he was, should be 
translated to Heaven, where Christ is the centre 
of song, and where His resurrection is the 
theme of conversation. Would he be any hap- 
pier than he was on the Bothnia? He would 
break up the choir if he could. Imagine him 
rushing up to Gabriel, making complaint that 
the saints and angels are singing of Christ and 
the resurrection ! A man in Boston bought a 
ticket to a race-course, and by mistake got on 
a boat going to a camp-meeting, where he was 
among Methodist preachers, singing hymns, 
talking about the Bible, and speaking of their 
Christian experience. He came to the captain 
and said : " Captain, I was never so near per- 
dition in my life. I will give you ten dollars 
to let me out at the nearest place." Put that 
gambler in Heaven, — would he be happy? No, 
indeed. Good surroundings cannot make bad 
men happy. Unless there be a taste for spir- 
itual things, spiritual surroundings are not 
happiness. " Ye must be born again." Those 



4 Milk ami Meat. 

who love whiskey will not find a bar-room 
even on the back streets of Heaven. For 
all who roll sin as a sweet morsel under 
their tongues there will be no course of sin 
at the celestial banquet. 

With these introductory words we come 
to the subject of the new birth. It is our 
purpose first to correct some mistakes con- 
cerning it, then to define it in God's own 
words, and, finally, to show how any one who 
will may be born again. 

I. As to the Mistakes. 

The new birth is not getting re/igio/i. You 
have that. There is not a man in the world 
who is not a religious being. The religious 
instinct marks us off from the brute. Men 
worship God or money or their friends or 
themselves, and they become assimilated to 
the object of their w r orship. Some are just 
about as hard in heart as the yellow gold 
they have been worshipping for the last twenty- 
five years. The mother takes her child and 
flings it to the crocodile. It is her religion 
that makes her do it. You see a man by the 



The New Birth. 5 

highway in India with his arm erect, and 
he has been standing for twenty years in 
that position. His arm has grown rigid and 
hard. He has religion ; and it is his religion 
that makes him hold up his arm till it be- 
comes almost as hard as wood. Yonder goes 
another man walking with spikes in his feet, 
and he has started out on a journey of not 
less than twenty miles. Bloody tracks are 
behind him. That man has too much religion. 

Religion in itself is not the new birth. 
Going into a church and sitting down where 
it is quiet and warm and beautiful, looking 
at frescoing and architecture, feeling sweet, 
sensuous impressions steal through you — all 
that may exist without the new birth. It is 
natural religion. 

And expressing your deep religious feelings 
in a gorgeous ritual is not the new birth. 
Nicodemus, the Pharisee, was one of the most 
religious men of his time. He fasted twice a 
week — better than some of us do. Better still, 
he gave tithes of all that he possessed. He 
made long prayers, standing on the street- 
corners. He made broad his phylactery. He 
was full of religion from head to foot. He 



o Milk and Meat. 

was a sort of deacon in the church of that 
day. Many of the Pharisees were hypocrites; 
they were ritualists ; but they were religious. 
Religion, I repeat, is not the new birth. 
Every man is a religious being. 

The new birth is not a change of feeling. 
The word feeling is mentioned but three 
times in the New Testament. Feelings can 
be changed even by the weather or the state 
of health. I know a man who is never religious 
except when he is under the influence of drink. 
Just as soon as he gets drunk, he mounts his 
cart on the street and preaches the sermon he 
heard the Sunday before. Three ounces of 
alcohol can make a man entirely different, so 
far as his feelings are concerned. 

Now, understand me, I believe in feeling. 
Feeling may go before the new birth. It may 
follow the new birth. But the feeling itself 
and the change of feeling is not the essence 
and substance of the new birth. Let me il- 
lustrate. I was preaching in a country church 
during August. The thermometer marked 
about 95 degrees, and the house was densely 
crowded. The people were standing in the 
aisles and all around the wall. At the close 



The New Birth. J 

of the service, according to the custom of 
the place, I invited those who wanted Chris- 
tians to pray for them to come up and take 
the front seats. About forty out of the 
crowd pressed their way up to the front. 
Their friends gathered around them to talk 
and pray with them. While I was talking to 
a man on his knees, I felt my head grow 
dizzy. I said to myself, " I must get out of 
here ; the atmosphere is too close." As I 
walked out the door," and met a good fresh 
gust of air coming in from the forest, I felt 
a thrilling sensation tingling to my finger tips. 
I felt like a new man from head to foot. It 
was a purely physical change, that was itself 
changed again by different surroundings ; but 
it was the kind of change that I once sought 
for religion. 

Have all the feeling you please, weep as 
many tears as you please, be as happy as 
you please; but these are accompaniments of 
the new birth, not the new birth itself. 

The new birth is not a change of rela- 
tion with men. Morality is right relation 
with men. Spirituality is right relation with 
God. A man may be all right with his fel- 



S Milk and Meat. 

lows, and all wrong with God. When a man 
gets right with God, he is right with man 
every time. The main purpose of Paul's letter 
to the Romans was to prove that righteous- 
ness, primarily, is right relation, and not right 
doing. It is getting right with God, and 
then doing right. There is no possibility of 
salvation without our first getting right with 
God. I know some men who can boast that 
they do not beat their wives ; that they are 
out of the penitentiary, — do not lie, and cheat, 
and steal, and do bad things generally. They 
are upright citizens ; all right with their fami- 
lies, but all wrong with God. In the city 
of Brooklyn, two or three years ago, a detec- 
tive went into a drug-store, laid his hand 
upon the shoulder of a man about thirty years 
of age, and said, "You are wanted." "What 
do you mean ? " asked the man. " You know 
what I mean. You were in the Albany peni- 
tentiary several years ago ; you escaped and 
went West. You married out there, and came 
back here and settled ; and we have been on 
your track ever since. Now we have you. 
You need not deny it." He said, "That is 
true ; I won't deny it : but I would like to go 



The New Birth. 9 

home and say good-by to my wife and child." 
"All right." They went to his home. He 
met his wife and little child in the parlor, 
and said : " Wife, haven't I been a kind 
husband ? Haven't I been a good father, 
and worked hard to make a living?" She 
replied, " Yes ; what do you mean ? " "I 
mean that I am an escaped convict from 
the penitentiary. Since I met you, your love 
for me has made a different man out of me ; 
but I am an escaped criminal, and must go 
back to the penitentiary." He was all right 
with his wife, child, and neighbors, but all 
wrong with the State of New York. His 
being right with his wife and child did not 
put him right with the State of New York. 
You may be all right with your friends and 
neighbors, but all wrong with God ; and, un- 
less you are born again, you never can get 
right with God. 

II. The New Birth Defined. 

But what is the new birth ? Turn to 2 Pet. 
1:4, and you have a good definition: "That 
ye might be partakers of the Divine nature." 



10 Milk and Meat. 

That's it. To be born of God is to become a 
partaker of the Divine nature. The divinity of 
Christ partook of our humanity. Our human- 
ity partakes of His divinity. We are made 
sons of God, and the son has the same na- 
ture as the Father. Jesus Christ was born a 
babe in Bethlehem, and we become babes in 
Christ. 

The new birth is the imparting of the 
Christly nature to the human soul, and is 
brought about by the Holy Spirit. We have 
nothing to do with it at all : that is God's 
part of the business. 

I do not know how my eating beefsteak 
will keep me alive, and yet I confess that I 
ate as heartily this morning as if I knew all 
about it, for the simple reason that my part 
of the transaction was quite simple. Those 
who make up their minds that they will not 
do anything they cannot understand all about, 
will soon be in a lunatic asylum or in their 
graves. A prominent man in the Southern 
States, a college president, made up his mind, 
after poring over scientific books, that he 
would not eat or drink until he could explain 
the relation between life and matter. That 



The New Birth. 1 1 

mail was sent to a lunatic asylum. The su- 
perintendent put him in a strait-jacket, and 
told him that he had to take something, 
whether he could understand it, or not. And 
he treated him right. Many people are mys- 
tified about the new birth, because they want 
to do God's part. 

III. Man's Part. 

What, then, is our part ? Jesus explains it 
to Nicodemus in the second text: " And as 
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, 
even so must the Son of man be lifted up, 
that whosoever believeth in Him should not 
perish, but have eternal life." As if Christ had 
said : " Now, Nicodemus, you are a Jew, and 
are conversant with Jewish history. You re- 
member that scene in the wilderness, do you 
not, when the people were bitten by fiery 
serpents, and God told Moses to make a piece 
of brass into the shape of a serpent and put it 
on a pole in the midst of the camp, and then 
proclaim to the people that whoever would 
look at that serpent of brass should be healed 
of the bite of the poisonous serpent? Nico- 



I : Milk and Meat. 

demus, My part of the new birth is to heal, 
and your part is to look." 

" There is life for a look at the Crucified One, 
There is life at this moment for thee ; 
Then look, sinner, look unto Him, and be saved, 
Unto Him who was nailed to the tree." 

The part that we are to do, then, is child- 
like — almost childish. God made it child- 
like and simple, that it might be within the 
capacity of the philosopher and the fool, of 
the learned man and the ignorant, of the old 
and the young, of the strong and the weak ; 
that salvation in its great scope might be as 
wide and as high as the greatest university 
training, and in its simplicity as low as the 
cradle in the nursery. He says, " Look to 
Jesus ! " He makes it simple, direct, and plain. 
" Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends 
of the earth"; for I am God and there is none 
else." 

It was not looking at the pole. I do not 
know what sort of a pole it was. Perhaps 
Moses went out and cut the roughest old stick 
he could find, all gnarled and covered with 
bark, and put the serpent up on it ; or he 



The New Birth. 1 3 

might have made it as smooth and trim as a 
carpenter's knife could make it. 

There arc some people who look to the 
pole, and expect to be saved by it. The 
ordinances of the church are simply the pok 
upon which Christ is uplifted. Baptism is the 
pole that holds up the burial and resurrection 
of Jesus. The church itself is the pole uplift- 
ing Christ. Every member of the church 
ought to be like a pole uplifting Christ, and 
asking men to look and live. It is not look- 
ing to baptism. You may be baptized in the 
waters of the Jordan, and be lost. Blood un- 
mixed with water cleanses from all sin. It is 
your duty to obey Christ in baptism, but it is 
not the channel through which salvation 
comes. The church is a good thing, and you 
ought to join the church ; but it is simply the 
pole. Trusting to the church never saved 
anybody. No ordinance, no organization, can 
bring about that experience in the human 
heart. 

Nor does it depend upon the light in 
which you are looking. I can imagine a man 
bitten, and he sees the serpent run off in the 
rocks. He feels the poison coursing through 



14 Milk and Meat. 

his veins, and his head begins to grow dizzy. 
He says, " I must go and look at the serpent 
of brass." There, in the distance, it is glitter- 
ing in the noonday sun. From one hill-top he 
sees it on the other hill-top, and just the 
moment he looks, he is healed. Here comes 
another man in the gloaming of the evening ; 
the shades of night have gathered, and he 
must come close, that in the misty darkness 
he may get a view of the serpent of brass. 
As he looks he is healed. Here is a man 
that comes in the moonlight, with its beauti- 
ful sheen over hill and valley ; he has to come 
closer still, and there, in the moonlight, he 
gets a view of the serpent of brass ; the 
moment he looks he is healed. Here comes 
another in the starlight, and he comes so 
close that he must have the serpent of brass 
between him and the bright starry sky yon- 
der ; as he looks he is healed. Here comes 
another man in the darkness of midnight ; 
perhaps a storm is raging, and in the light- 
ning flash he gets a view of the serpent ; he 
is healed. Another comes with a flickering 
lamp and must hold it up close to the ser- 
pent of brass ; but he looks by the light of 



The New Birth. 15 

the flickering lamp, and is healed. No mat- 
ter, I repeat, about the kind or degree of 
light in which you look. " They came to 
Christ from every quarter," but they came ; 
and getting to Christ is salvation. Looking to 
Christ, believing in Christ, is our part of the new 
birth, whatever be the light in which we look. 
Here is one man that comes in the noon- 
day splendor of good health and prosperity ; 
but he knows he is bitten, and as he looks to 
Christ he is saved. Here comes another amid 
the gathering shadows of sorrow, perhaps of 
life itself. But he looks amid the shadows, 
and he is saved. There comes a man in the 
light of some Christian's experience, in the 
light of some book, which like the moon re- 
flects the word of God, — in the light of some 
Christian character, that has in it the reflection 
of the Sun of righteousness, and, looking in 
this reflected light, he is saved. Here comes 
another, who believes there are some good 
people. He believes that his mother is in 
Heaven, because she trusted Jesus. He looks 
in the darkness, and only sees by the light of 
a star or two ; but he looks, and is saved. 
Here comes another man — oh, how many have 



1 6 Milk and Meat. 

thus come with the storm raging and light- 
ning flashing around them ! — and in the light- 
ning flash of the storm he gets a look ; in 
a moment he is saved. No matter about the 
light. Look to Christ, believing in Him as 
your Saviour, and* the moment you believe — 
God's word for it — you are born again. Your 
part is to believe. God's part is all the rest, 
about which you have no concern. 

We are saved by faith. Everything is. 
Every good institution is saved by faith. 
The family is saved by faith. Wipe out 
faith in husband, wife, and child, and you 
destroy the home. The government is saved 
by faith. Let the people lose faith in the 
government, and it will topple about their 
ears. Commerce is saved by faith. You bank- 
ing men know how it is. Let the people 
lose faith in a bank, and that bank soon 
crashes. In an English town a report got out 
that the bank was about to fail. Five hun- 
dred people ran for their deposits on the 
same day. The pastor of the dissenting 
church in the town was invited by the bank 
directors to meet them. They said to him, 
" Sir, if these people press us to the wall, 



The New Birth. i 7 

they will lose their money. If they don't 
press us, we will pay every dollar/' The 
pastor said, " I will help you ; I have some 
money, and I trust you." He went home, got 
his money, came to the bank door, and, stand- 
ing on the step, said, " Friends, you all know me ; 
I have been living here twenty-five years, and I 
believe in this bank. Here are three hundred 
pounds that I am going to deposit. I believe 
the bank is good." In less than thirty minutes 
every one of those people had dispersed, and 
the bank was saved by faith. Unbelief as to 
that bank was about to ruin it. The moment 
faith was implanted, the bank was saved. 
Railroads are saved ! y faith. Steamboats are 
saved by faith. Your business, friend, is saved 
by faith. Every good thing on earth is saved 
by faith. And when the infidel rails at the 
religion of Jesus Christ because we are saved 
by faith, he is railing at every institution that 
this country holds dear. " Believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." 



II. 

THE WAY AND WORK OF LIFE. 

" Looking upon Jesus as He walked, he saith, Behold the 
Lamb of God." — John i : 36. 

Beholding Christ as the Lamb of God is 
the Way of Life. 

Not a Creed. — Creeds, as expressions of our 
faith, are good enough in their place, but the 
man who makes a creed take the place of Christ 
is like the patient who eats the prescription 
while he rejects the medicine. There is as much 
difference between Christ and a creed as there 
is between a man and his biography. Creeds, 
like baskets, may hold luscious fruit ; and we 
would not dispense with the baskets, but as an 
article of diet baskets are not good. We need 
vessels to hold water, but the vessels themselves 
will not quench our thirst. 

Not the Church. — The church is for saved peo- 
ple ; the way of life is God's door into it. After 

18 



The Way and Work of Life. 19 

we have beheld the Lamb of God, we should 
join the church ; but no sadder mistake can be 
made than to regard the church as the ark of 
safety, the city of refuge for the soul. There 
is a vast difference between a post and a tree. 
Those who enter the church, that they may be 
saved thereby, are like posts without life, planted 
in the earth. Time rots them, and they fall 
down ; while those who enter the church, be- 
cause they have been saved, are like trees full 
of life, planted by the river of water, whose leaf 
shall not wither. 

Not Ordinances. — Ordinances are the symbols 
of truth. The Lord's Supper is the shadow of 
Christ, the Lamb. Baptism is a picture of the 
burial and resurrection of our Lord. But look- 
ing at a picture of food does not satisfy hunger ; 
looking at a picture of water does not quench 
thirst. 

Not an Experience. — Beholding the Lamb of 
God gives an experience ; as a result we have 
love, hope, and all the Christian graces, but these 
are the fruits of the Spirit, and not the object 
of our faith. They are good proofs that we are 
saved, but, looking to the work of the Spirit in 
us should not displace the work of Christ for us. 



20 Milk and Meat. 

The Spirit and Jesus are no rivals. The Spirit 
v mid have us look away from Himself to the 
Lamb of God whom He delights, while He 
hides Himself, to hold before the eyes of all. 

Not beholding Christ as merely a Teacher, 
Pliilantliropist, or Example. — It is popular in 
some quarters nowadays to exalt the life of 
Christ at the expense of His death. It is the 
religion of Cain, with his fruits and flowers, with- 
out the blood. It is an attempt to cover over 
the offence of the cross with the attributes of 
the man Christ Jesus. It is an exaltation of 
the man at the expense of the Lamb. I would 
be second to none in praising the perfection of 
the character of Christ, and in desiring to grow 
into His full stature ; but, in order that we may 
be like Him, we must first get rid of sin that 
has defaced our characters, and " without the 
shedding of blood there is no remission/' Cal- 
vary is the alphabet of Christianity. We must 
start at the cross, if we would reach the crown. 
Grasping for the crown, while we ignore the 
cross, is a sort of pious theft. 



The Way and Work of Life. 2 1 



The Work of Life is to make one's Per- 
sonality a Voice proclaiming the Way 
of Life. 

The people asked John, " Who are you?" His 
reply was, " I am the voice of one crying in the 
wilderness." Not, I have a voice, although he 
had one strong enough doubtless to preach to 
twenty thousand people in the open air, but he 
said, " I am the voice ;" my whole personality, all 
that is meant by " John the Baptist," is a voice 
crying in the desert " Make straight the way of 
the Lord." Our work in life, after we have 
beheld the Lamb of God, is to be a John the 
Baptist calling men to the Christ. We should in 
all our relations voice the saying, " Behold the 
Lamb of God." Now the practical question is, 
How can we do this ? In four ways. 

1. By oar Words. — The man who is a voice of 
God will use the voice he has for God. Those of 
us who hear God will speak His word, and our 
ability to speak will depend upon our ability to 
hear. When a man loses his hearing, he loses 
his speech. The deaf are always dumb, and the 
man who fails to hear God as he speaks in Reve- 



22 Milk and Meat. 

lation will not speak for God. We who have 
heard Him should speak forth the hope that is in 
us. 

Our business is " by all means to save some." 
We may do other things, but they are incidentals. 
As you walk down the corridor of the Astor 
House toward the restaurant, you will see stand- 
ing in the door a man who never looks into your 
face ; he always looks at your shoes. That man's 
business is to black shoes, and I have never see^n 
him look into the face of a guest. His one 
thought is about the condition of the shoes. A 
life-insurance agent told me that he never saw a 
respectable man who did not suggest to him a 
policy. His business was to get policies. Every 
person we meet should suggest salvation. Is he 
a Christian ? Can I speak a word now that may 
change his life ? Such a man was John Wesley, 
and his followers have to a large extent drunk 
in his spirit. Wesley was robbed once by a 
highwayman, and, as he handed to him his 
scanty purse, he said, " Sir, you may some time 
repent of this, and if you ever do, remember, 
The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth 
from all sin." Several years afterwards a man 
took Wesley by the hand as he came out of 



The Way and Work of Life. 23 

church and said, " Do you remember the time 
you were robbed in a certain place ? " " Yes," 
said Wesley, " I shall never forget that." "Well, 
I was the man that robbed you, and the words 
you spoke to me made me a Christian and an 
honest man." I have not heard whether or not 
he returned the money to Wesley ; he ought to 
have done so, if he did not ; but the point I w r ish 
to make is, that Wesley was Christian enough to 
think more of saving that man's soul than of 
keeping his purse. 

2. By our Business. — Every man's business 
should be a voice proclaiming Christ. It can- 
not be such, if it is a bad business ; and, how- 
ever good in itself, if it is conducted on bad 
principles, it is never the voice of God. A 
gentleman telegraphed to a friend asking what 
a certain man was worth. The reply was, 
" His note is worth a million dollars, but his 
word is not worth a cent." You will not be 
surprised to learn that, before very long, his 
note was as worthless as his word. That 
man's business went to wreck, because it was 
not founded " upon principles of honesty. 
"What are you doing there?" asked a neigh- 
bor, as he came into the shop where a Chris- 



24 Milk and Meat. 

tian blacksmith with strong arm was beating 
the white iron upon the anvil and making the 
sparks fly in every direction. " I am preaching 
the gospel to the regions beyond," he replied, 
as he continued to swing his heavy hammer. 
His was a holy calling; the ring of his ham- 
mer was as sweet to God as an angel's harp, 
and that smoky shanty was a palace in which 
God delighted. So every man's business may 
be made a voice proclaiming the Lamb of God. 
3. By our Money. — Princess Eugenie, of Swe- 
den, soM her diamonds, that she might build a 
home for incurables. On one of her visits to 
the home she met a wicked, sick woman, to 
whom she talked about Christ. She told the 
matron on leaving that she hoped special at- 
tention would be given to that poor creature, 
for the Princess was anxious that before she 
died she should become a Christian. One day- 
she found the invalid with bright face, because 
her heart was radiant with hope, and, as she 
took her by the hand, the tears gathered in 
her sunken eyes. The Princess said to her 
husband on returning to the palace, " I saw 
the glitter of my diamonds to-day in the tears 
of penitence." 



The Way and Work of Life. 25 

" But," you say, " I am no princess with dia- 
monds for sale." A newsboy was run over in 
New York a few weeks ago by a vehicle, and 
carried, mangled in body, to the hospital. As 
soon as his mother came in, he pointed to his 
little vest lying upon a chair, and said, 
" Mother, there are four cents in my pocket 
that I got for selling papers before I w T as 
hurt ; I made them for you. Don't forget to 
take them." That boy's spirit of ministry to 
his mother is as bright as the glitter of Eu- 
genie's diamonds. The two-fifths of a cent 
that the poor widow put into the treasury 
may, in the view of angels, have a brighter 
flash than all the diamonds of earth, for they 
have the brilliancy of trust and consecration. 

4. By our Character. — Above all things, our 
character must be a voice proclaiming the 
Lamb of God. Our words spoken, printed and 
written, our business, our money, will not 
atone for the lack of a clear Christian char- 
acter. " What we need," says some one, "is 
not more men, but more man." The manifes- 
tation of Christian character is the crying 
need in this age and all ages. I saw two por- 
traits in the National Art Gallery 'in London, 



20 Milk and Meat. 

under one of which was the title " A Man," un- 
der the other " A Woman." They were meant 
to express the artist's ideal of manhood and 
womanhood, and, as I gazed upon them, I 
thought it is better to be a man than a king, 
a true woman than a queen. 

After the battle of Lutzen, in which Gustavus 
Adolphus was slain in the hour of victory, all 
Stockholm and the other cities of Sw r eden were 

m 

in mourning. The representatives gathered from 
far and near, in order to consider what now 
should be done. There was talk about a Ve- 
netian Republic, and some said that Sw r eden 
should be given to the King of Poland, who 
was a cousin of Adolphus ; but Oxenstiern, the 
Grand Chancellor, stood before the assembly 
and said, " Let there be no talk of a Venetian 
Republic, or Polish kings, for we have in our 
midst the heir of the great Gustavus, his little 
girl, who is six years of age." Larson, a peas- 
ant representative, replied abruptly, " How do 
we know, Oxenstiern, that this is not a trick 
of yours, to cheat us out of our rights ? We 
have never seen this heir. We do not know 
that Gustavus has a child." "Wait a minute," 
replied Oxenstiern, " and I will show you." 



The Way and Work of Life. 1 J 

He soon brought into the room Christina, the 
little six-year-old daughter of the king, and lift- 
ing her up, placed her in the throne, where 
only rulers of Sweden were allowed to sit. 
Larson pressed his way up close, gazed for a 
moment into her face, and then, turning around 
to the assembly, said, " Brethren, I see in the 
countenance of this child the features of the 
great Gustavus. Look at her nose, her eyes, 
her chin : she is the child of our king." " Yes," 
replied Oxenstiern, " and she has the heart 
of a soldier, for I saw her clapping her hands 
and shouting at the booming of the cannon;" 
and by acclamation she w r as proclaimed, girl 
that she was, " Christina, King of Sweden." 
The world presses very close up to us, 'scans 
our every feature, and, if they see in our moral 
and spiritual make-up the lineaments of the 
character of Jesus Christ, they w T ill proclaim us 
children of the King ; but if they fail to per- 
ceive that we are like Him, they will deny our 
claim and pronounce us pretenders. 

The way of life is to behold the Lamb of 
God : the work of life is to make ourselves 
and all we have a voice proclaiming Christ to 
others. 



III. 

SPIRITUAL SLEEP. 

11 Awake, awake ; put on thy strength, O Zion." — Is. 52 : 1. 

" TlRED nature's sweet restorer, balmy 
sleep," is essential to the health and vigor of 
body and mind. But our moral and spiritual 
natures need no sleep. Love, faith, hope, 
humility need never slumber. Hence in 
Heaven we will be able to serve God day and 
night. The spiritual will have the supremacy. 
The untiring will be forever active. 

In the 9th verse of the previous chapter 

Israel is trying to wake up Jehovah. "Awake, 

awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord." 

The words of our text is God's answer to that 

prayer. " Awake, awake, put on thy strength, 

O Zion." " Wake up yourself," says the Lord. 

" I am not asleep. No attribute of mine 

needs repose. I am ready, willing, waiting to 

28 



Spiritual Sleep. 29 

exert my power, whenever you fulfil the con- 
ditions I have imposed." We have not by 
prayer or exertion to induce God to bless us. 
But prayer and exertion God requires for our 
good. It would be no kindness in Him to 
bless sleeping Christians. They would not know 
it, if He did. Let us inquire : 

I. What are the Signs of Sleep ? 
II. What are the Causes of Sleep? 
III. Why should we Awake? 

I. The Signs of Sleep. 

Inactivity. — If a man remains motionless on 
a lounge for three or four hours, I take it 
for granted that he is asleep. If he should 
continue in that motionless condition for three 
or four days, I should pronounce him dead. 
If a Christian does nothing for Christ, he is 
asleep. If he persists in his course of useless- 
ness, it is a fair presumption that he is no 
Christian at all. Life will express itself. " By 
their fruits ye shall know them." And the 
ability to sleep is not one of the fruits. If we 
suspect that a friend, a long while asleep, is 
dead, we put our ear to his side and listen for 



30 Milk and Meat. 

the heart-beat and breathing. The movement 
of heart and lungs indicates that life is not 
extinct. And so we put the test to some 
Christians who really appear to be dead. A 
close examination shows that they have the 
heart-beat of faith in Christ, love for his word 
and people. They breathe prayer and praise. 
They are simply asleep, and some of them 
have the Rip Van Winkle power of long 
continuance in slumber. It is a pity that 
a close examination should ever be necessary 
to distinguish their sleep from death. Were 
they doing their duty, no one would have a 
doubt on the subject. 

Insensibility to Slight Impressions. — If I 
wished to learn whether a man were asleep, 
I would not fire a cannon over him. Awake 
or asleep, he would be aroused by that. 
I would whisper to him, or touch him gently. 
The fact that you are startled by the can- 
non boom of great crime, that you shudder 
at the thought of theft, murder, or lying, 
is no proof that you are awake. But how 
are you affected by what the w r orld calls 
little sins ? Things that are not criminal, but 
simply worldly, doubtful, unscriptural, un- 



Spiritual Sleep, 3 1 

Christlike ? The Christian who can indulge 
without compunction of conscience what may 
do harm in the way of weakening his influ- 
ence or causing his brother to stumble is 
asleep. The man who refuses to obey Christ, 
just because that act of obedience does not 
give him Heaven, is asleep. Disobedience of 
any kind makes the wide-awake Christian 
smart with pain. 

Dreams. — Sleep produces dreams. And 
there is a kind of dreaming that is good for 
us. It is well to dream of doing great things 
for God and humanity. Such castles in the 
air have become solid structures. But the 
dreaming which expresses itself in idle specu- 
lations and mystical reverie is a sure sign of 
sleep. The paradise of such dreamers is the 
book of Revelation. They love to ride its 
horses, fly with its eagles, and revel with the 
spirits of its mysterious visions. To them 
they are not mysteries. Strange things often 
appear perfectly plain in dreams. The wide- 
awake preacher will be practical ; while he 
does not despise prophesying, he prefers to 
deal in the plain rather than the mysterious. 
He is awake to the needs of the people to 



32 Milk and Meat. 

whom he ministers, and seeks all the time to 
do them good. It is not uncommon for a 
sleeping Christian to have a nightmare. He 
gorges himself with some infidel book or 
magazine, and no wonder he feels the weight 
of a black mountain of doubt pressing upon 
him. Giant Despair, with his foot upon his 
breast, is crushing the life out of him. If you 
fill your mental stomach with such pork and 
cabbage, you may expect to suffer the conse- 
quences. 

Ill-di?'cctcd Effort. — People talk and walk 
in their sleep, but it is all to no purpose. 
Their talk is incoherent, and their walk with- 
out aim. When pastor and people, with all 
their preaching and activities, have no bless- 
ing, it is because they are asleep. 

II. Causes of Sleep. 

Inactivity, — The sign may in turn be a 
cause. One is not apt to go to sleep while he 
is moving about. I know a good deacon who 
leads a very active life during the week, but, 
when he becomes quiet in church, he usually 
goes to sleep in about fifteen minutes. I 



Spiritual Sleep. n 

never knew him to fall asleep while busy on 
the street or in his office. A Christian active 
in winning souls will not go to sleep. His 
very activity will keep him awake. My 
drowsy brother, if you would not go to sleep, 
bestir yourself. Go to work. Exercise your 
mental, moral, and spiritual limbs. 

Atmosphere. — Certain climates put people 
to sleep. The sleepy disease of Africa has 
been fatal to thousands. But one need not go 
to Africa to be put to sleep by the atmos- 
phere. An ill-ventilated room will send us to 
dreamland in a few minutes. A change from 
the sea-coast to the mountains or from the 
mountains to the sea-coast, strange to say, 
makes us drowsy. No one knows what there 
is in such pure atmosphere that produces 
sleep. So there are moral and social atmos- 
pheres that seem to be very good, but Chris- 
tians who go into them fall asleep. Prove to 
me that the atmosphere of the theatre and 
the ball-room and the club is as good as a 
prayer-meeting ; that first-class people go to 
these places ; that men and women whose 
characters are above reproach patronize them : 
the fact remains that these good people are, 



34 Milk and Meat. 

as Christians, sound asleep. They are not 
awake to winning souls, converting the 
heathen, building up the church. They come 
to church on Sunday like people rubbing their 
- and trying to rouse from sleep long 
enough to hear something that is being said 
to them, and then fall back upon their pillows. 
dead asleep again. The church full of such 
excellent people would be a dormitory, and a 
dormitory for all practical purposes is about 
as good as a graveyard. " Awake, thou that 
sleepest, and rise from the dead." 

There is a coldness, if nothing else, in these 
atmospheres that induces sleep. The sensation 
of freezing to death is delightful, and causes 
little alarm to the man who is under its magic 
spell. Mr. Egerton Young, missionary among 
the Indians of the far North, told me that 
he had once the experience of freezing. He 
heard sweetest music, while everything about 
him was draped in the colors of the rainbow. 
He could hardly resist the temptation to drop 
down in the snow as into a luxurious couch, 
and go to sleep. Startled by the thought that 
he was freezing to death, he adopted a heroic 
remedy. He tied the tail-rope of his sled fast 



Spiritua I Sleep. 3 5 

around his waist and gave his dogs the word 
to go, and off they went, dragging him through 
the snow and bumping him against every hard 
thing in the way, till the blood began to 
circulate. Then the process of resuscitation 
was as painful as freezing was delightful. He 
felt as if a hot awl were in every nerve. To 
you w T ho are in the first stage of freezing, 
because you have been so long in an atmos- 
phere 60 degrees below zero, the waking pro- 
cess may not be pleasant. But it is better to 
wake up and feel bad than to sleep on and 
die to all that is good and useful. 

III. Let us look now at the Reasons 

WHY WE SHOULD WAKE UP. 

It is Harvest Time, — Christ looked out 
upon the fields and declared that they were 
ripe, waiting for the sickle. To-day the fields 
are larger, and the grain just as ripe. A day 
in harvest is worth many days at any other 
time of the year. The ripe grain may be lost 
for the lack of reapers. " He that sleepeth in 
harvest is a son that causeth shame." Shame, 
shame on the farmer who snoozes under the 



36 Milk and Meat. 

shade of the trees, while his ripe wheat is 
falling and being trampled under foot. He is 
a disgrace to the honorable profession of farm- 
ing. Shame, shame, a thousandfold, on the 
Christian who sleeps on and takes his rest, 
while the fields in which he might reap many 
golden sheaves are all around him, and the 
grain that invites his sickle is being trampled 
upon by the hoofs of infidelity and sin. 

// is a Time of War, and the Enemy is 
a/zcays awake. — While we sleep, the citadels of 
truth are being taken. Our very children are 
made captives by the enemy. We have read 
a grim story in which Satan is said to have 
sent some of his minions from the bottomless 
pit for the purpose of doing all the harm they 
could. On their return one of them reported 
that he had overtaken a company of Christians 
in a storm and destroyed them by sinking 
their vessel. " You did no harm," said Satan, 
''for they all went straight to Heaven." An- 
other had set fire to property and destroyed 
much wealth that belonged to Christians. 
" You may have done no harm," continued 
Satan, " for their losses make them all the 
more determined to fight against us." Finally, 



Spiritual Sleep. 3 7 

one reported that he had succeeded in putting 
to sleep a large number of Christians. Then 
Satan smiled, and all the host of devils 
shouted their approval. The legend has in 
it the awful truth that nothing can do the 
cause of Christ more harm than for Mis people 
to go to sleep. 

We are Watchmen, put by the Lord on the Walls 
to give the People Warning. — Sleep is treason. 
For the private soldier to sleep in the midst 
of battle is bad enough, but for the sentinel 
on whom depends the safety of the army to 
sleep at his post is criminal. And doubly 
criminal is it, when those we love are in danger. 
A father walked out through his fields with 
his little bright-eyed boy, and laid down to 
rest in an inviting shade. He fell asleep, while 
the child played in the grass around him. But 
on waking he could not see the boy. He called, 
and only echo answered. Frantic with dread, 
he rushed to the edge of a precipice, and saw 
on the rocks below the mangled form of his 
darling child. Could he ever forgive himself 
for sleeping, when he ought to have known the 
nearness of danger ? Father, mother, that may 
be your portrait. Are you at ease in mind, 



38 



Milk and Meat 



sound asleep, while your children are sporting 
on the edge of the precipice of infidelity, drunk- 
enness, or worse ? Wake up, and seek their 
salvation. 

Asleep we arc Weak. — A pigmy awake is 
stronger than a giant asleep. The wide-awake 
Christian is a channel through which the 
omnipotence of God pours itself. u Awake, 
awake, put on thy strength, O sleeping man of 
God. 1 ' Go into the harvest field. Take part in 
the battle that is w r agiug, ctnd, clothed in the 
power of God Himself be invincible. 






IV. 

HOW TO SAVE THE CITY. 

" So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed." — , 
Acts 19 : 20. 

THE problem of the cities has interested the 
church in all ages. Christ sent forth His dis- 
ciples, two by two, into every city. He went 
and preached in their cities. He began the 
world's evangelization in a great city. The 
cities redeemed means the world redeemed. 

There are to-day many organizations for the 
betterment of our cities. Some believe that 
education is all that is needed, and they spend 
their time and money in establishing schools. 
Others think that the curse of our cities is 
poverty, and they organize anti-poverty socie- 
ties. And others believe that the only hope 
of saving the cities is to begin with the chil- 
dren ; hence all kinds of efforts for reaching 

39 



40 Milk and Meat. 

the little ones. Many others magnify environ- 
ment, and believe that the thing to be done 
is to improve our tenement-houses, and put 
better surroundings about the poor. With the 
spirit of all these institutions we are in hearty 
sympathy, and we would not hinder one of 
them in their work. They are doing good, 
and are needful. Every philanthropic effort 
that at all ameliorates the condition of the 
poor we should support. 

But in this discourse it is our purpose to 
point out the apostolic method of evangeliz- 
ing the cities. We find it in the 19th chapter 
of "The Acts," and the secret of the method 
is given in verse 20 : 4t So mightily grew the 
word of God and prevailed." Paul's depen- 
dence was the word of God, and it prevailed 
by a process of growth. Growth implies life. 
There was a living power which accompanied 
the word. 

Let us consider : 

I. The Method by which it Grew ; 
II. The Forces against which it Prevailed. 



How to Save the City. 41 

I. The Method. 

Apollos had preached at Ephesus the bap- 
tism of John. The church there had not 
so much as heard of the Holy Spirit. Apollos 
was cultured and eloquent, a very magnetic 
man, and drew these people about his person- 
ality. We have a great many churches built 
up in our cities upon the magnetic personalities 
of men. People flock to hear them because 
of their rare eloquence. Such churches are 
influential, but powerless. They gather crowds, 
and reach the masses without building up a 
spiritual church. So the first thing Paul set 
about was to get this little church at Eph- 
esus endued with power. He laid his hands 
upon them, and they received the Holy 
Spirit. Just what relation the imposition of 
hands had to the gift of the Holy Spirit I 
hardly know. But Jesus gives us the method 
in another place: " If ye, being evil, know how 
to give good gifts unto your children ; how 
much more shall your heavenly Father give the 
Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?" We 
may have the Spirit of power for the ask- 
ing. This was the method pursued before 



4^ Milk and Meat. 

Pentecost. The disciples met in an upper 
room to ask for the fulfillment of the promise 
of the Spirit's coming. And no great revival 
has ever come upon a city which was not 
preceded by hours and days, perhaps weeks, 
of prayer. Common - sense suggests this 
course. If we wish to kindle a fire, we first 
put on the paper, then the wood, and, after 
these combustibles have caught, we put on the 
coal. The church within the church who be- 
lieve in prayer are the tinder ready to receive 
the fire of the Holy Spirit. Revival work is 
not an explosion, but a combustion, a confla- 
gration. 

As a result of this, the tongues of the little 
church were untied ; they all became proph- 
ets ; every one was a preacher of the glad tid- 
ings. Christians need to forget the distinc- 
tion between clergy and laity, while all seek 
to win men to trust and love Jesus Christ. 

The next step was to preach continuously 
for three months in a building devoted to re- 
ligious uses. Paul went into the synagogue 
and spoke boldly, " reasoning and persuading 
as to the things concerning the kingdom of 
God." The synagogue held the most religious 



Hoiv to Save the City. 43 

body that could be found. Next to the little 
church that Apollos had gathered, those who 
attended the synagogue were the best mate- 
rial upon which to work. They were formal, 
cold, lifeless ; but when the little church, full 
of power, was brought among them, their for- 
mality vanished, their coldness was melted, 
and they were quickened into spiritual activity. 
Let but a handful of earnest Christians in a 
large church become full of the Holy Spirit, 
and they will soon impart their fervor to the 
rest of the membership. 

The third step was to hold a protracted 
meeting every day for over two years in a 
purely secular building. After the dissension 
in the synagogue, Paul took those who were 
in sympathy with him to the lecture-room of 
Tyrannus. Who Tyrannus was I do not 
know ; doubtless a popular teacher of rhetoric, 
with a large hall in the centre of Ephesus. 
In this hall for two years Paul preached daily, 
until all Asia heard the word of God. It 
may be that the reputation of Tyrannus ex- 
tended over all Asia, and the fact that Paul 
was in this popular public place gave him an 
opportunity of preaching the gospel to the 



44 Milk and Meat. 

whole country. Ephesus was the commercial 
Now York of Asia. Arteries of commerce ran 
from this great city into every surrounding 
province. 

If we will examine the methods of re- 
vivals, we will see that they were begun and 
carried on in this apostolic fashion. Begin 
with Pentecost : first, a little handful gather 
around Christ, who teaches them for tw r o or 
three years ; then a larger company in the 
upper room praying and waiting; and then 
the great crowd, of whom three thousand 
were converted in one day. 

The great revival under Whitefield and Wes- 
ley began and was carried on after the same 
fashion. First, a little handful of students, the 
" Holy Club " at Oxford, then a larger num- 
ber in a foundry of London, and then great 
throngs at Srnithfield. So McAll's work was 
begun and carried on in Paris. At first only 
he and his wife on fire with the Holy Spirit, 
then a larger number gathered about them, 
and now one hundred secular halls in which 
the gospel is preached every day. 

So began and grew the work of the Salvation 
Army, At first only Booth and his wife and a 



How to Save the City. 45 

small company of sympathizers, then a larger 
number, and now girdling the world with their 
stations. It is beginning with the combustible 
material and letting the fire spread. It is the 
church getting ready by waiting upon God, 
and then going out where the people are and 
preaching to them the gospel with power. If 
I wanted to burn up this city, I should not try 
to set fire first to a safe-deposit vault, but I 
would look for a more combustible building. 
If we are to have a conflagration of revival 
zeal, the fire must begin in the hearts of a 
few. 

II. The Foes. 

I. The Religious People who did not believe 
in u the Way." — The way which Paul preached 
was " repentance toward God and faith to- 
ward our Lord Jesus Christ/' His message 
was the simple gospel of the grace of God. 
He endeavored first to bring men into right 
relation with God, believing that such was the 
best way to bring them into right relation with 
each other. And we are told that some in 
the synagogue spake evil of the way. They 



40 Milk and Meat. 

did not believe in this simple gospel method. 
They thought there were other ways better, or 
just as good. They might have suggested a 
course of lectures by Tyrannus in his own 

lecture-room, in which the gospel was not to 
be prominent. Taking the people by guile 
was, to them, the shortest way. Paul, however, 
insisted on the way, and persisted along that 
line. The people to-day who are the greatest 
obstacles to a revival are the religious people 
in our churches who really do not believe in 
the power of the gospel. They would substi- 
tute other good things for it. Some of them 
talk about beginning to save a man a hundred 
years before he is born. To them the gospel 
which revolutionizes is effete. They have lost 
sight of the arm that wields the " sword of the 
Spirit." Preaching the simple gospel of recon- 
ciliation to them is folly. They are in advance 
of that ; they look upon it as old-fogyish, and, 
of all the forces in the church, these religious 
people of good character who oppose the apos- 
tolic way of salvation are the greatest obsta- 
cles. 

2. Imitators of the Good. — There was a band 
of Jews under Sceva, a renegade high-priest, 



How to Save the City. 47 

who had come to Ephesus to make money by 
pretending to cast out evil spirits. As soon as 
they saw that the name of Jesus on the lips of 
Paul had a magic power, they decided at once 
to appropriate and use it, and their formula 
was: "I adjure you by Jesus, whom Paul 
preached." The bad mei. possessed with 
devils, however, had no sympathy with these 
imitators. " Jesus I know, and Paul I know, 
but who are you?" was the reply. Imitators 
are to-day in the way of the gospel's suc- 
cess. Almost every religious society takes 
to itself the name of Jesus, or something that 
suggests Him. To them it is simply a talis- 
manic word. They do not worship Him nor 
believe in Him as Saviour and Master, but 
they would put their pernicious doctrine and 
often their practices under the cloak of His 
popularity. They are shams, and wicked men 
who see through shams despise them ; never- 
theless they are great obstacles in the way 
of saving the lost. In this great city, so- 
cieties which call themselves churches, borrow- 
ing the word " church " from Christ, and some 
of them " churches of Christ," deny His divin- 
ity, his power to save from sin, His atoning 



.|S Milk and Meat. 

merit, and everything which makes Him the 
real Christ that He is. They are simple imi- 
tators of those who in heart honor the Lord. 

3. Bad Literature. — These imitators were 
very zealous in making and circulating bad 
books, — books which described their occult 
arts and gave them standing with the people. 
But the power of Paul's gospel was so great 
that the owners of these books w T ere converted, 
and in a street of Ephesus there was a bon- 
fire such as the small boys had not seen in a 
long time. Twenty thousand dollars' worth of 
these books were put in a pile and burned to 
ashes. Such a cleansing of the literary atmos- 
phere in our great cities is greatly needed. 
Paul's method of doing it is the best. Not to 
issue a law against free speech, but to be so full 
of the Spirit and preach the gospel with such 
power that editors and authors shall be reached 
and converted, and made to burn up their own 
vile publications. What a great blessing it would 
be if more than one half of the daily papers 
could be burned up. Their tone is immoral. 
Some of them have the ethics of the brothel. 
Paul was so full of the Spirit that everything 
about him was saturated with His power. The 






How to Save Ike City. 49 

very handkerchiefs that touched his person 
carried with them virtue, and, if the preachers 
and churches of these great cities were thus 
charged with Almighty power, the men who 
flood our streets with vile publications would 
feel the influence of it. Oh for such an in- 
filling of power ! It w r ould settle nearly all 
the questions which agitate our city life. 

4. The Opposition of those whose Business was 
in Danger by the Success of the Gospel. — In 
Ephesus was the great temple of Diana, and 
there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of 
men who made their living by manufacturing 
and selling little images of this popular god- 
dess. The success of Paul's preaching turned 
many away from purchasing these wares. The 
result was a commotion among the craftsmen. 
Demetrius, doubtless president of the associa- 
tion of idol-makers, called a mass meeting, and 
protested that this crusade against their busi- 
ness should stop, and he made an appeal for 
the honor of Diana. Not only their trade was 
in danger, but the very glory of the goddess of 
Ephesus was beginning to fade. 

In our cities to-day there is a trade which 
would be overthrown by the success of the 



^o Milk and Meat. 

gospel. It is a trade in human homes and 
hearts and happiness. The temple of Diana 
in New York and Brooklyn is the liquor 
traffic. The goddess of this country is Lib- 
erty, and those who make their money out of 
this traffic plead for the honor of their god- 
dess. They claim that they have the liberty 
to destroy their neighbors. The greatest ob- 
stacle in the way of the success of the gospel 
is this very traffic, and yet, sad to say, many 
Christian men join them in the cry : " Great is 
the goddess of Liberty, which allows men to 
slay their fellows by wholesale. " Ye men of 
God, take your stand on the side of humanity, 
of purity, of home and heaven, against the 
mob whose financial interest leads them to 
oppose the gospel. 

I close just where I began. In spite of the 
religious people in the church who opposed the 
way, in spite of the imitators, in spite of bad 
literature, in spite of the opposition of those 
whose business was in danger, Paul succeeded 
in reaching and saving many of the Ephe- 
sians. And in spite of all the forces arrayed 
against us in great cities, the churches, if they 
will, can reach and save multitudes. But in 



How to Save the City. 51 

order to do it in any large measure, the few 
must first be filled with the Holy Spirit. 
The church must be filled with power from on 
high. Her confidence in the gospel as the 
power of God unto salvation must be un- 
shaken. Men and women must be laid on the 
altar in the spirit of a truly Christly sacri- 
fice, and then shall begin the fire that will 
spread to a conflagration. 



V. 
THE GOSPEL FEAST. 

"Come, for all things are now ready." — Luke 14 : 17. 

The Gospel is a Feast Prepared. 

We have not to make ready a single dish. 
All that we need comes to us freely through 
Jesus Christ. If we are guilty and plead for 
pardon, we are forgiven upon His merit. If 
polluted, we plead for cleansing, the blood of 
Christ washes away every stain. Are we at 
unrest? "He is our peace/' 

Making peace with God is a losing business. 
Peace has been already made ; and what we 
need is to accept this peace and enter upon its 
enjoyment. A friend of mine went into the 
mountains of North Carolina, to spend a few 
weeks of summer vacation, in the hope that he 

might get away from the mail, the whistle of 

52 



The Gospel Feast. 53 

the engine, and everything that reminded him 
of work. With much difficulty he climbed a 
high mountain and descended on the other side 
into a country covered with a dense forest. He 
thought, to be sure, no one lived in this out-of- 
the-way place ; but what was his surprise to 
find in the centre of these w r oods a little cottage 
surrounded by several acres of cultivated land. 
On his approach the door was shut, the window 
closed, and he saw at a glance that the inmates 
did not intend to admit him. After much 
pleading, however, the door was opened, and he 
learned that two men had been living there for 
nearly three years. They had deserted from 
the Confederate army, and had gone to this 
out-of-the-way place, built their cottage, cleared 
their land, and made up their minds to keep 
out of the reach of the conscripting officer. 
They were delighted to learn that the war had 
been over more than two years, and they were 
glad to return to their homes. Now, peace 
had been in existence tw T o years, but these 
men did not know it, and hence did not en- 
joy it As soon as they learned of peace, 
they began to enter upon its enjoyment. 

Soldiers, having refused to surrender after 



54 Milk and Meat. 

peace had been declared, might have gone to 
the Black Hills and waged a guerilla warfare 
against the government. Such are those who, 
having heard of the peace which Christ has 
made, refuse to accept it, while they continue 
their warfare of unbelief. 

We have not to keep the peace. " The peace 
of God, which passeth all understanding, shall 
keep your minds and hearts through Christ 
Jesus." The peace keeps us. When a country 
is bothered with keeping the peace, it is a time 
of turmoil and unrest, which may end in revolu- 
tion. When a country is kept by peace — peace 
reigning like a queen — it is a time of rest, 
prosperity, and progress. We cannot insist too 
strongly that the peace of God and all other 
graces come to us as a gift through Christ 
Jesus. 

The Mission of the Church is to make 
definite God's General Invitation to 
the Feast. 

The man who made this supper sent his 
servants to " bid them that were bidden,'* to 
invite the invited. His invitation had gone 



The Gospel Feast. 55 

out some time before ; and, now that the time 
for feasting has arrived, the servants make per- 
sonal and special this general invitation. The 
general invitation of " whosoever will " has gone 
out to mankind. It is our mission to seek the 
invited and make direct and personal this invi- 
tation of God. 

A gentleman sat in my congregation one 
afternoon, distressed about his sins, anxious for 
salvation. He remained for the inquiry meet- 
ing. A young convert, who had never done 
such a thing before in her life, went to his 
side, opened the Bible, put her finger upon a 
promise that had given her comfort, and asked 
him to read it. As he read, the light came 
into his mind, the way of life was clear. He 
accepted Christ, and rejoiced. Now that young 
convert's mission was to make the promise 
definite and personal ; and her mission is ours. 
The pastor proclaims the gospel on Sunday. 
In the nature of the case the proclamation 
must be more or less general. Let each 
member of the church feel that he is commis- 
sioned in the after meeting, in the home, in 
the personal intercourse with friends, to make 
definite this general proclamation of peace. 



56 Milk and Meat. 

It is difficult to make an Excuse for 
not becoming a christian. 

" They began with one consent to make ex- 
cuse." They had no excuse in hand ; it had to 
be made ; and after an excuse for not doing 
right is made, it is not worth the making. 
Nearly all excuses are lies guarded ; at the 
heart of them is a falsehood. Their object is 
to cover the real reason. 

The reason why these men did not come to 
the feast was that they did not want to come. 
A man comes to you to borrow five hundred 
dollars. The reason you do not wish to lend 
it is that you fear he will not repay you. But 
in giving him an excuse, lest you offend him, 
if you are not careful, you will tell two or 
three lies in the attempt. 

Let us look a moment at the excuses of these 
men. One had bought a piece of ground, and 
he said, " I must needs go and see it." Now 
that was a lie. He had bought the ground, and 
there was no need of his going to see it. The 
need of seeing came before buying. If he had 
said, " I have bought the ground and I will go 



The Gospel Feast, 5 7 

and see it," he might have told the truth. But 
when he said " I must go," he spoke falsely. 
In attempting to make our excuses good, we 
are apt to overshoot the mark, and make them 
false upon their face. 

The second man said " I have bought five 
yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them." There 
is a lie in the word " prove." The proving 
should have taken place before the buying, and 
his emphasizing the fact that now he must try 
them after he had bought them shows the 
weakness of his excuse. 

The third said " I have married a wife, and 
therefore I cannot come." The lie of this ex- 
cuse is in the word " therefore." He had mar- 
ried a wife, and therefore he ought to have 
come. It w r as a time of festivity with him, and 
he and his bride might have come to enjoy the 
delightful occasion. But when he gives his 
marrying as a reason for not coming to a feast, 
his excuse is false to the core. 

But with what politeness two of these men 
cover up their flimsy excuses ! " I pray thee, 
have me excused." " I pray thee." It is very 
difficult to reach men who make excuses, and 
parry you off with politeness. You tell them 



58 Milk and Meat. 

that it is time for them to be Christians. They 
treat you kindly; they are courtesy itself; they 
would not violate a law of good manners. 
They simply refuse to come, and their very 
gentlemanly bearing puts you at a disadvantage 
with them. I know two or three men with 
whom I have talked and urged them to be- 
come Christians, and they have treated me with 
such uniform courtesy and kindness that I have 
felt that it would be a relief if they would get 
rough and angry — anything to break the mo- 
notony of courteous refusal to accept the Lord 
we love. The last man, who has married a wife, 
seems to think that he has a little better ex- 
cuse than the rest, and he can afford not to 
be polite. So he blurts out gruffly " Therefore 
I cannot come." He does not say " I pray 
thee, excuse me." He cares not whether you 
excuse him or not. He is not coming ; that 
is the end of the matter. But this gruff and 
discourteous reply carries in it more hopeful- 
ness than the smooth-flowing and courteous 
response of the other men. The man who 
flatly refuses may be led flatly to accept ; 
while the man who is polite and gentle and 
forbearing even in his refusal is apt to continue 



The Gospel Feast. 59 

in that course, which he himself admires, to 
the very last. 

God accepts with Indignation a Bad 
Excuse, and passes Men by. 

Being angry, he said to His servants, " Go 
out quickly into the streets and lanes of the 
city and bring in hither the poor, the maimed, 
the halt, and the blind." " Pass by these men 
who are able to buy land and oxen and marry 
wives, and go out for those who are too poor 
to buy land or oxen, or too low and mean 
for anybody to marry them. Go out into the 
street and tell every man you meet that the 
feast is spread, and the Master is waiting for 
the guests." " Lord, we have done as Thou 
hast commanded, and yet there is room." " Go 
now into the highways, out beyond the walls 
where the gypsies camp, and there you will 
find some poor creatures without a roof, curled 
up under the hedges for a night's repose ; tell 
them that there is a place at my table even 
for them. If they are reluctant to come, you 
must compel them by earnest persuasion. Do 
not take an excuse from them, for their need 



Go Milk and Meat. 

is so great that, after your entreaty, they will 
yield and come." 

What God does we sometimes feel con- 
strained to do. We must pass by the good, 
moral man, and seek the outcast. We must 
pass by those who, we think, would make the 
best members of the church, and go with our 
invitation to the very refuse of society. Sad 
to say, we must sometimes pass by our very 
children, while we go out after others, not 
united to us by fleshly ties. Work like this 
demands that we love people, — not classes or 
kindred merely, — love like that of Christ, who 
so loved the whole world that He gave Him- 
self for it. 

The great question in commerce is as to the 
refuse. A large silk manufacturer in London 
made little profit in his business until he in- 
vented a machine that utilized the refuse of 
his factory, and since then he has had an 
annual income of over half a million dollars. 
I have heard that the Standard Oil Company 
now has an income of nearly two millions as 
the result of their utilizing the refuse of the 
refineries. Formerly it was cast out to be 
burned or buried. It was a dirty, sticky stuff 



The Gospel Feast. 6 1 

upon the floor, and was in the way ; but a 
chemical process was discovered by which this 
unsightly refuse could be transformed into 
chewing gum, and made palatable even to the 
taste of refined young ladies. 

As with commerce, the great question of the 
day, social, political, and religious, is concern- 
ing the refuse of society. What shall we do 
with the masses in our great cities, untouched 
by the church, careless of law, despairing, hun- 
gry, and cold? Can the gospel do anything 
for them ? We believe that it is the sovereign 
remedy, and, when the polite and refined 
refuse to accept our message, let us rush by 
them down into the highways and hedges and 
tell those who are worse off that there is a 
feast for them which God has prepared. And 
out of this refuse there will come forth an 
income to God which we cannot calculate. 

The verdict went forth, " None of those men 
which were bidden shall taste of my supper." 
Terrible thought that God Himself may leave 
us to our lying excuses. More terrible thought 
that God may pass us by and give us over to 
our own selfish ways. I have known of two 
cases in which men seemed to have been for- 



o2 Milk and Meat. 

saken by the Spirit of God, because they re- 
fused to accept the invitation that was given 
by a faithful messenger. One of them was a 
leading lawyer, prominent in politics, among 
the first men of his State. A friend of mine 
pressed upon him the claims of God, and 
urged him to come to this feast. He treated 
my friend kindly and politely, saying, u I am 
too busy ; I am now running for Congress ; I 
have on my shoulders the building of a rail- 
road. I know it is an important matter, but 
I cannot come now." Three years afterwards 
a messenger rushed into a minister's house, 
asking him to come and see this lawyer. The 
preacher saw 7 it was too late to do any good. 
There he lay, dying of delirium tremens, curs- 
ing God with every breath. He deliberately 
refused to accept the invitation, w r as allowed 
to go on in his way, and become fixed in sin- 
ful character. 

Another friend, a converted Catholic priest, 
was preaching in a country church, when he 
noticed a young man with a bright face sitting 
near the front. After the sermon he went 
down and asked him if he was a Christian. 
" No, sir," was the reply, "but I am inter- 



The Gospel Feast. 63 

ested." " Decide now," urged my friend, " for 
to delay the matter is dangerous." " Not 
now," he said, " but I will soon." The meet- 
ing continued one week, and the young man 
persisted in refusing to accept the invitation. 
My friend went to another church several 
miles distant, to hold a second meeting, and 
was surprised to see this same young man in 
the congregation, but in the back part of 
the house. He went to him and urged him 
again to decide for Christ; now he noticed 
that he was more indifferent, that he spoke of 
it in rather a light manner. But he came 
every day during the week and listened atten- 
tively. My friend went to a third church 
several miles distant, and this young man fol- 
lowed him to that meeting, but then he was 
out in the yard among the scoffers, and, 
coming into the house late, seemed to take 
little interest in the preaching. More than a 
year after this last meeting my friend was 
called to see that young man die. He sat by 
his side and tried to urge upon him even now, 
at this late hour, to accept the invitation to 
the feast. The young man shook his head 
sadly and said, " It is too late, sir. Since that 



64 Milk and Meat, 

last meeting when I heard you preach, my 
heart has been as hard as stone. There is no 
use in praying for me." My friend knelt at 
his bedside and tried to pray, but he could 
not help feeling that it was no use. The 
young man had hardened himself in sin and 
unbelief, until the very avenues of approach 
to his soul seemed to have been cut off. The 
last words he said were, " The harvest is past, 
the summer is ended, and I am not saved." 

Young man, I beg you, pass not by this 
invitation of God so lightly. Make no excuse. 
Accept at once, and take your place at the 
table of salvation, where angels themselves are 
the waiters. Cause not the Lord of mercy to 
pass you by with anger. Give not His ser- 
vants pain in feeling that they too must pass 
you by, while they press on and seek to save 
others. Accept pardon, peace, and power 
through Christ, and begin the Christian life, 
which is a feast and not a funeral. Its joy 
begun on earth is a foretaste of the eternal 
joy in heaven. 



VI. 

THE REVIVAL WE NEED. 

" My soul cleaveth unto the dust. Quicken Thou me accord- 
ing to Thy word." — Psalm 119 : 25. 

" I am afflicted very much. Quicken me, O Lord, according 
to Thy word." — Psalm 119 : 107. 

" Plead my cause, and deliver me. Quicken me according to 
Thy word. ,, — Psalm 119 ; 154. 

THESE scriptures give us three things : 

I. The Definition of a True Revival. 
II. Our Need of such a Revival. 
III. How to Get it. 

I. The True Revival Defined. 

It is a quickening according to God's word ; 
not according to some man's magnetism or 
eccentricity. A talented evangelist may swoop 
down upon a community, and make a stir by 
sharp, striking sayings, draw large crowds, and 

65 



66 Milk and Meat. 

quicken a kind of interest : but such a quick- 
ening may be according to the evangelist, not 
according to the word of God. Now, what 
we need is an increase of spiritual life along 
the line of Scripture teaching. A revival 
means a riving of more life. David had life ; 
what he wished was life more abundantly. 
We have love for God and men ; what we 
need is more of the same quality ; but be sure 
that it is love according to the word of God. 
" This is the love of God, that we keep His 
commandments." Obedience, not sentimental- 
ism or unctious joy, is love. Such obedience 
to God will be linked with unselfish ministry 
to man. A missionary by the name of Cros- 
sett died recently in China. He was known 
among the Chinese as the . " Christian Buddha," 
— the highest title of honor a Buddhist could 
give him. He chose a life of poverty, be- 
cause he did not have time to make money. 
He spent his days and nights with the sick 
and the poor and the anxious. He led many 
of them to Christ. He thought not of himself, 
but of others. He loved men, not because of 
the ties of kinship or nationality, but because 
they were men with immortal souls precious 



The Revival We Need. 67 

in the sight of God. Such love we need in 
abundance — a love producing a zeal that con- 
sumes us — a love that burdens us for the sal- 
vation of men. 

Faith. — We need a quickening of faith ; faith 
in the power of the God of Pentecost to con- 
vict and convert three thousand in a day. Faith, 
not in a process of culture, by which we hope 
to train children into a state of salvation, but 
faith in the mighty God, who can quicken a 
dead soul into life in a moment ; faith in 
moral and spiritual revolution rather than 
evolution. 

Conviction. — We need conviction. Looseness 
is in the air, and we know who the prince of 
the power of the air is. There is a charity 
prevalent which rejoices not in the truth. We 
need men and women who believe something 
definite, and are willing to live and die for 
their faith. Is there on earth to-day a John 
Knox, willing to face Queen Mary and declare 
to her that she is an idolatress ? Is there 
among our young women an Anne Askew, 
who, rather than profess what she does not 
believe, that the real presence is in the wafer, 
would go to the Tower and have her bones 



68 Milk and Meat. 

crushed on the rack, and then from the stake in 
Smithfield go up to God in a chariot of fire ? 
Is there among our older women an Elizabeth 
Gaunt, who, while the thumbscrews are on her 
thumbs and fingers, tightened until the blood 
spurts, refuses to worship saints and bow down 
to the Host? Have we any John Philpots and 
John Rogers left in our ministry, who are will- 
ing to burn at the stake rather than give 
even silent consent to soul-destroying errors ? 
Have we not, on the other hand, a namby- 
pamby, flabby sort of faith — a jelly-fish convic- 
tion, without any backbone ? Is not our re- 
ligion too much like a ball of wax — put into 
any shape by touch with things about it ? 
We need a revival of religion of solidity and 
substance — a religion that resists evil and error, 
and, with the gentleness and faithfulness of 
Christ, is true to itself and to its Author. 

Conscientiousness. — There is a great need also 
of a revival of conscientiousness — a religion 
not of the hot-house, which thrives under the 
heat of song and sermon and services on 
Sunday, but of sturdy growth, that will flourish 
in the soil and atmosphere of everyday busi- 
ness. Honest merchants, truthful lawyers, 



The Revival We Need. 69 

faithful preachers, loyal citizens, devoted 
mothers, wives, and husbands, obedient chil- 
dren, industrious workmen, are the needs of 
to-day and every day. A quickening of consci- 
entiousness that gives a tender conscience and 
makes us ready to do the right at all hazards, 
is better than a season of froth and foam of 
feeling or rapturous joy. The grocer who 
went home from church and burnt his bushel, 
because he knew that it w r as a false measure, 
received more benefit from the sermon than if 
he had gone home, clapped his hands, and 
shouted hallelujah, without thinking of his dis- 
honesty. Such a revival as that will last. It 
will not be like the beautiful snowflower of 
Siberia, which comes up through the snow, 
and perishes in a few hours under the wither- 
ing blast of evening. The flowers of faith and 
joy which blossom one day and wither the 
next are not of the species of the rose of 
Sharon or the lily of the valley. 

II. Our Need of such a Revival. 

1. To Lift us out of the Dust and Help us 
to Shake off all that Clings to us. — " My soul 



;o Milk and Meat, 

cleaveth unto the dust.. Quicken Thou me ac- 
cording to Thy word." Dust is the symbol of 
earthiness as opposed to heavenly-mindedncss. 
David's soul had an attraction for dust. 
Drooping or dead things hold dust. It will 
not stick so easily to living objects ; and the 
cure for this dust magnetism is a larger infu- 
sion of life. The sick eagle wallows in the 
dust ; it has not strength of wing to rise and 
shake it off ; but the eagle full of life soars 
above the dust and gazes into the sun. Chris- 
tians who are to-day wallowing in the dust 
of worldliness need an infusion of strong 
healthy life, that they may " mount up on 
wings as eagles." 

2. To Sustain us under Life's Burdens — " I 
am afflicted very much ; quicken me, O Lord, 
according to Thy word." Dust mars and 
hinders life, but it is not heavy. There are 
Christians not covered with dust, living conse- 
crated lives, who have on them heavy burdens 
of responsibility, calamity, or sorrow. Such as 
those need quickening, that they may have 
strength to bear their burdens. David was 
afflicted very much, and this word " afflicted " 
has a wider range than bodily disease. But 



The Revival We Need. 71 

he does not pray for a lessening of the 
burden. What he wants is more life to carry 
what he has, and to assume larger burdens. 
Burden-bearing develops a strong, healthy- 
man, while it crushes the weak and sickly. 
We need more life under these burdens, that 
they may develop us, rather than crush us. 

Responsibility, disappointment, and sorrow 
make men despair : they give up the con- 
flict sometimes on the very verge of victory, 
for the lack of life to bear up. A man in 
California had spent his little fortune seek- 
ing gold ; every dollar was gone, and he was 
in debt. Disheartened, demented by his de- 
spair, he left his drill one day, went to his 
cabin, shot his wife and child, and then killed 
himself. His friends, who pulled up his drill, 
found on its point the richest kind of ore. 
If he had held out but a day longer, he 
would have been rich ; and thus we may be on 
the very verge of great success, and yet fail 
for the lack of the life that bears disappoint- 
ment. 

3. To Break all Bonds that Enslave us. — 
" Plead my cause. Deliver me. Quicken Thou 
me according to Thy word." This reveals to us 



;: Milk and Meat. 

a condition of bondage. " Deliver me ; set me 
free :" and this freedom comes through a re- 
vival — a quickening according to God's word. 
Some of us are bound by habit ; the habit of 
doing evil or the habit of doing nothing good. 
It is difficult to tell which is worse — the habit 
of doing what is wrong, or the habit of 
neglecting what is right. Oh for the quicken- 
ing that will deliver us from these do-nothing 
bonds! Others are bound by the fear of men. 
When the apostles were filled with the Spirit, 
they spoke the word of God with boldness ; 
they feared neither the face nor the sword of 
their enemies. Many are bound by self- 
interest. They are afraid to offend those out 
of whom they make profit. They will not be 
out-and-out Christians, lest some who read not 
the Bible and care nothing for religion will 
not be pleased. The social circle in which 
they move is not an atmosphere of religion. 
The opinions of their friends do not encour- 
age active work for Christ. We need a quicken- 
ing, that will give us strength, like Samson, 
to break the cords which these Philistines of 
the world have put upon us. 



The Revival We Need. 73 

III. HOW TO GET SUCH A REVIVAL. 

Pray for it. Every text is a prayer : 
" Quicken Thou me according to Thy word." 
It is a personal prayer. It is well to pray for 
the pastor, for the church, for all Christen- 
dom, for the world. It is better to begin by 
praying for one's self. " Quicken me." If 
you are quickened, somebody else will be ; 
and if the fire begins in your soul, the flames 
will catch the combustible material about you. 
You need to strike the match that can burn 
up a city. The fact is, all quickening must be 
individual. The Lord does not quicken the 
crowd. The tongue of flame at Pentecost sat 
not upon the crowd, but " upon each of 
them." A revival that comes in answer to 
prayer is God-given, and the only kind worth 
having. A revival gotten up is soon put 
down. A revival produced by a series of me- 
chanics, whether of song or invitation or 
eccentricity, will not last. It can be de- 
stroyed by an opposite course of mechanics. 
It is simply a battle of force with force, with 
which God has nothing to do. The revival 
which we call the Reformation was born in 



74 Milk and Meat. 

prayer. Luther's habit was to pray three 
hours a day. The knees of Melanchthon were 
found after his death to have been made 
callous by kneeling. Pentecost was preceded 
by ten days of supplication and prayer. Peter 
and John were in the spirit of prayer on their 
way into the Temple, when the other great re- 
vival in which many were converted was com- 
menced. After Christ had cast out the devil 
from the demoniac, he said : tk Such as this 
cometh only by prayer." Oh for Elijahs who 
can break up the spiritual drought by praying 
rain out of the skies! Jonathan Edwards' ser- 
mon on the " Sinner in the Hands of an 
Angry God " he preached many times, but 
only on one occasion was it signally blessed. 
He read from a manuscript, holding it up 
awkwardly to the light ; and yet, while he 
read, the people took hold of the pews, fearing 
that they were sliding into hell. What was 
the secret ? A little company of his members 
had met the Saturday evening before, re- 
mained together without supper, continued in 
prayer all night, forgot their breakfast next 
morning, as they pleaded with God for His 
hand of power upon their pastor. 



The Revival We Need. 75 

John Wesley carried an old man around 
with him to pray for him. The secret of his 
vast power was doubtless the intercession of 
this godly man. " Father " Chiniquy was con- 
verted on a Saturday evening, and he spent 
the whole night in prayer and praise. No 
wonder when he stood up before his large 
congregation the next day, and preached on 
Jesus Christ the gift of God, a thousand souls 
were converted. What we need now for 
quickening is not so much money and wisdom 
as the spirit of supplication. Pray for your- 
self until the new life is infused ; and when 
that new life comes, it will lead you to pray 
for others. Like the servant-girl in a New 
England town who prayed all night for the 
salvation of her mistress. That mistress, un- 
able to sleep, convicted of her sin, not know- 
ing the cause, urged her husband to go out 
and get some preacher to pray for her; then, 
reflecting that the servant-girl was a Christian 
they went to her room, and before opening 
the door they heard these words : " O Lord, 
bless mistress. Have mercy on her, for she is 
good to me/' Opening the door gently, hus- 
band and wife knelt down by the side of their 



;6 Milk and Meat. 

servant-girl, and asked her to pray for them. 
We need not riches, nor honor, nor position 
to have the car of the King. The weakest 
may be made powerful by the quickening of 
the Spirit. If you cannot pray, then try 
David's petition : " Quicken Thou me, and I 
will call upon Thy name." Pray for the grace 
to pray; pray for the spirit of prayer; and 
the God of all mercy and grace will show 
forth His power. 



VII. 
AN UNFORTUNATE MARRIAGE. 

" The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they 
were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.'' 
— Gen. 6:2. 

Cain's method of treating Abel represents 
one phase of the world's treatment of the 
church. It was open opposition, radical, cruel, 
decisive. He simply killed him, and thought 
thus to end him and his cause. The tactics 
of the world, however, have changed : the de- 
scendants of Cain no longer oppose and per- 
secute the church. " The daughters of men " 
accept proposals of marriage from the " sons 
of God," and, as a result, the deluge. 

The pagan world tried to kill the church 

77 



;S Milk and Meat. 

for nearly three hundred years. Its efforts only 
multiplied her members and power. The blood 
of the martyrs has ever been the seed of the 
church. When, however, Constantine offered 
to join wealth, honor, and political power to 
the church, she accepted the offer, and what 
the second Adam refused the second Eve 
gladly received, and the result was a fallen 
church. We see in this Satan's usual tactics. 
He likes to appear as an angel of light. He 
would help us. He offers to help Eve to 
knowledge and power. He would help Christ 
in supplying Him with food, and in giving Him 
earthly glory. 

In proportion as the church has resisted the 
wiles of this charmer, she has been strong ; and 
in proportion as she has yielded and formed 
alliances with the world, she has been weak. 
Israel alone with God could never be con- 
quered, but when she formed alliances with 
Egypt, or the Canaanites, her enemies found 
little difficulty in making quick work of her. 
Hezekiah was not overcome by the bold 
threats of the messengers of Sennacherib. 
Their insolent words drove him to God, who 
sent His angel to strike dead his enemies; but 



An Unfortunate Marriage. 79 

when the messengers of Merodach-Baladan 
came with words of friendliness and flattery, 
he opened to them his treasures, and, letting 
them into the secret of his strength, was thus 
the occasion of Israel's downfall. We should 
fear the Greeks, though bearing gifts. It is 
now time to answer two questions suggested 
by the text : 

I. What were the causes which led to this 
union of the church with the world ? 

II. What were the results of it? 



I. What led to the Union? 

The increase of population had something 
to do with it. " When men began to multi- 
ply." There are many advantages from the 
gathering together of large numbers of people. 
The highest type of civilization and religion 
is reached in great cities, but here the forces 
of evil are also strongest. Disease is conta- 
gious, while health is not. Wild weeds left to 
themselves flourish, while tender garden plants 
wither and die. A prominent preacher said 
some time ago that puritanism was forever 



Milk and Meat. 

dead in Now York City. He might have 
added that in many of the churches Chris- 
tianity was as dead as puritanism, and I 
wonder what relation the death of puritanism 
has had to the death of Christianity. We have 
no fancy for the style of hat and coat which 
the Puritans wore. The follies of the i4 Blue 
Book " we do not admire, but in the Puritan 
character there was sturdy stuff. Theirs was 
no invertebrate theology jelly-fish morality, or 
india-rubber conviction. They were such men 
as you would like for your daughter to 
marry : as you would trust in business : as 
make a country great A Boston orator ex- 
claims. " I am glad that the Puritans lived, and 
I am glad that they are dead." So am I. for 
I believe that most of them are in heaven,, 
and very much octtcr off than if they were in 
Boston to-day. Happy for Boston if the de- 
scendants of the Puritans were as good as 
their fathers. And these men of heroic convic- 
tion were not blue and melancholy ascetics. 
Their pleasure was not of the variety-theatre 
type. It was not made up of froth, but 
flowed from beneath the throne, deep as the 
river of God. 



Aii Unfortunate Marriage. 81 

" They shook the depths of the desert gloom 
With their hymns of lofty cheer ; 
Amid the storm they sang, 

And the stars heard and the sea, 
And the sounding aisles of the dim wood rang 

With the anthem of the free." 

The attractiveness of the world, however, 
was the force which brought about this union. 
The daughters of men were fair. Added to 
their beauty were wealth and musical cul- 
ture. The poorer sons of the church could not 
withstand these charms. They were drawn, 
not by the godliness of their characters, but 
by the goodliness of their looks. The world 
to-day is very attractive. It knows how to 
hide its hideous deformity behind beauties of 
face and external accomplishments, and the 
daughters of men still delight to throw their 
charms over the sons of the church, and lead 
them to make fools of themselves. Nothing 
pleases a beautiful, worldly young woman 
better than to make conquest of a godly, spir- 
itual young man, and lead him at her will into 
places and indulgences of which his conscience 
does not approve. 

Note, however, that the church made the 



82 Milk and Meat. 

advances. The sons of God wen. courting 
the daughters of men ; and that is often the 
case to-day. Some churches court the world 
more than the world courts them. Such a 
church hopes to get something out of the 
world by becoming worldly. 

11 She welcomes the world to her festal halls 

With attractions varied and new, 
And thus easily done with frolic and fun, 

She gives to the Lord His due. 
Fair and festival, frolic untold, 

Are held in the place of prayer, 
And the maidens, bewitching as sirens of old, 

With worldly graces rare, 
Invent the very cunningest tricks, 

Untrammelled by gospel or laws, 
To beguile and amuse, and win from the world 

Some help for the righteous cause." 

The church thus loses her personality, 
blends into the world, becomes a part of it. 
Now do not misunderstand me. I believe in 
laughter. The smile is better than the frown, 
and I yield to none in the claim that true 
Christianity gives the highest type of pleas- 
ure. But we can never win the world simply 
by courting it and laughing with it. There is 



An Unfortunate Marriage. 83 

a shrub in Arabia called the laughing plant ; 
ground to powder, and administered, it pro- 
duces fits of laughter. The person under its 
influence is unconscious of everything about 
him, as he roars in hysterical laughter. But 
Christianity is no laughing plant. It tells the 
truth about sin and its punishment, and re- 
veals to men the deformity of their own char- 
acters ; such faithfulness should bring tears 
rather than laughter. We may laugh when 
there is a time to laugh, but it is poor policy 
to seek to win the world by merely joining in 
its frolics. 

These sons of God were evidently prayerless 
and wilful. " They took wives of all which 
they chose." They didn't consult God about 
it. They were led simply by their own taste. 
Before you stand under the orange-blossoms, 
it is well for you to get upon your knees and 
ask God for guidance. Be charmed as you 
will by the beautiful face, fine culture, and all 
external graces, but there may be a serpent in 
a basket of flowers. Back of all that beauty 
and outward grace is there a grace of charac- 
ter which will last after the face is withered 
and the eye grown dim ? But above all it is 



84 Milk and Meat. 

needful for the Christian, when tempted to 
form alliances with the world, to get upon his 
knees and ask God's opinion of it. Are you 
fond of dancing? Get on your knees and ask 
God whether or not by such alliances as that 
amusement forms you can promote His glory. 
If so, you may dance your feet off. I would, 
if I were convinced that I could thus win the 
world to Christ. Are you fond of the the- 
atre ? Get upon your knees and ask God 
whether an alliance with such an institution 
will help His cause. If you are convinced 
that it will, by all means attend, and support 
the theatre. Do you like card - playing ? 
Upon your knees ask God whether by an 
alliance with that institution you can have 
more influence for Christ with a godless world. 
If so, spend your evenings in shuffling cards. 
Make light of them as we will, these are sol- 
emn questions ; for, listen ! " Ye adulterers and 
adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship 
of this world is enmity with God. Whosoever, 
therefore, would be a friend of the world 
maketh himself an enemy of God." Polyg- 
amy we despise. Spiritual polygamy God 
hates. It is unfaithfulness to Him, of the 



An Unfortunate Marriage. 85 

blackest dye. Let us shun it, as we would 
the leprosy. 

II. What were the Results of this 
Union upon the Church? 

There was evidently a loss of power. The 
world had gained the church, but the church 
had not gained the world. The daughters of 
men played havoc with spirituality. One god- 
less, worldly woman, with great beauty and re- 
finement of manners, can do more harm in a 
church than five men. She makes the home, 
and, when the home is against the church, the 
pulpit has little power. Sad the day when the 
principles and spirit which govern the home 
cannot live in the atmosphere of the church. 
A Brahmin said to a missionary in India : 
"We are beginning to find you Christians out. 
You are not as good as your Book ; if you 
were, the world would soon be converted." 
Worldly men despise the Christianity that apes 
their ways and is, therefore, no better than 
themselves, 

In the town of Banbridge, County Down, 
Ireland, in 1859, a travelling circus spread its 
tent and was rewarded by the attendance of 



86 Milk and Meat. 

only three persons. The astonished manager 
inquired the reason, and found that a revival 
of religion was in progress of such power that 
the people took no interest in his circus. 
That was one way of converting Banbridge. 
Another method would have been to send a 
committee of church people to meet the circus 
men and inform them that they would like to 
add a religious service to their performances. 
The church wanted to go to the circus, but 
could not do it conscientiously, unless there 
was something pious about it. The agreement 
is made, and, while the clowns stand by and 
the riders are ready, a prayer is offered, a 
hyrnn is sung, a short exhortation is given by 
the principal pastor of the town, in which he 
denounces puritanical notions and lauds the 
jollities of the circus ring. What is the result ? 
A conglomeration of heterogeneous worldliness 
and religion, which disgusts men and is sicken- 
ing to God — the sort of thing which made 
Him say to one of the churches in Asia that 
He would spew them out of His mouth, and 
which made the world so bad that He had to 
wash its filthy surface with a deluge and begin 
anew with one family that remained true to Him. 



VIII. 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF GIVING. 

"It is more blessed to give than to receive. " — Acts 
20 : 35. 

Some gems, as solitaires, are most beautiful ; 
they are so brilliant that they need no other 
gems to set them off. This text is such a gem 
of truth. It appears to have been omitted by 
the four evangelists, and picked up by Paul as 
he came along after them ; but there was 
really no omission. The other beatitudes 
lean upon each other : it takes them all to 
make a whole. This one is a sort of summary 
of all the rest : it is the life of Christ in a nut- 
shell. It is but another way of saying, " The 
Son of man came not to be ministered unto, 
but to minister." 

Now in what consists the blessedness of giving? 

87 



88 Milk and Meat. 



I. Giving includes Receiving. 

" Give, and it shall be given unto you ; 
pressed down, running over/' " Honor the 
Lord with thy substance, and with the first- 
fruits of all thine increase : so shall thy barns 
be filled with plenty." Scripture after script- 
ure goes to prove that the man who gives re- 
ceives, though the man who receives, sad to 
say, does not always give. Receiving is but a 
province in the larger kingdom of giving. 
Note, however, that it is giving — not trading, 
nor paying, nor bartering. If we give with a 
view to receiving from God, we give not at 
all. If we give expecting nothing in return, 
God will make an abundant return. If we 
give expecting Him to repay, the very nature 
of the act is changed. He does not promise 
to give money for money, bond for bond, gold 
for gold ; but He does promise that to those 
who give He will make returns. 

A little boy in London gave to the Lord's 
cause one fifth of the prize he won at school. 
Though never a millionaire, he was the most 
abundantly blessed of all great preachers. 



The Blessedness of Giving. 89 

That boy was Charles H. Spurgeon. God 
returned to him a thousandfold. 



II. Giving Cleanses, while Receiving 
and Keeping Pollutes. 

" Give of such things as ye have, and, be- 
hold, all things are clean unto you " (Luke 
11:19). The foulest things in New York are 
not the sewers, but the money in the pockets 
of some men who have not given a cent of it 
to God. The fountain that throws up its 
sparkling water into the sunlight is made 
clean by the very process of giving. The 
Dead Sea, with its black asphaltum, is the foul- 
est of places. No fish live in its waters ; 
no fowl swim upon its bosom ; and the 
secret of its foulness is that it takes the 
Jordan in at one side and gives off nothing. 
\ The Sea of Galilee would be as foul as the 
Dead Sea, if it gave not off the Jordan that 
it receives. The man that only takes blessing 
from God is a Dead Sea; the man that re- 
ceives from God and gives back of what he 
receives is a Galilee full of life and beauty. I 



90 Milk and Meat. 

have heard of a Christian woman who, while 
poor, gave liberally to several good causes, 
but, after she had inherited a fortune, she 
ceased to give anything. One of the deacons 
waited upon her and asked her the reason. 
She frankly replied that, while she was poor, 
she did not know the value of money, but, 
after she became rich, she saw that one dollar 
would make another, and it dried up the fountain 
of her benevolence. Receiving made her nar- 
row and stingy. 

On the diary of a good woman in New 
York, who received five thousand dollars from 
a friend, were written the words : " Quick, 
quick, before my heart grows hard." She had 
been in the habit of giving a certain portion 
of all her earnings to the Lord, and, when 
she found that she had five thousand dollars 
on hand, the temptation was strong not to 
give the same proportion, but to keep it for 
her own use. She felt the polluting process 
begin, and hastened to counteract it by 
promptly giving. I knew a man worth fifty 
thousand dollars whose wife had to give him 
ten cents every Sunday, to induce him to go 
to church with her. He explained it by say- 



The Blessedness of Giving, 9 1 

ing, " I have fallen into such a habit of mak- 
ing money that I can do nothing, unless I see 
some money in it." Now that man was very 
little — smaller than ten cents, smaller even than 
the infinitesimal part of a cent. Ostervalde, 
a banker of Paris, while on his dying bed, 
refused to order beef for his broth, because he 
could not think what disposition could be 
made of the beef after he had drunk the broth. 
Receiving had contracted the nature of these 
misers, until there was scarcely anything of 
the man left. 

III. Giving develops all other Graces. 

It is a grace. " As ye abound in everything, 
in faith and utterance and knowledge, and in 
all diligence, and in your love to us, see that 
ye abound in this grace also." The growth of 
any grace will develop other graces, just as the 
growth of any sin will develop all other sins. 
Giving fosters and increases love. We love 
those for whom we make sacrifices. The 
mother loves most tenderly the child for whom 
she gives the most sleepless nights. I may 
not understand why God first loved sinners ; 



02 Milk and Meat. 

but, after I have seen Christ on the cross, 
learned something of how much God has sac- 
rificed for sinners, I understand why He loves 
them now. If you would attach a man to 
you, do him a kindness ; if you would bind 
him to you with hooks of steel, get him to 
do you a kindness. A pastor in Wilmington, 
X. C, threw a stray dog a bone. The dog 
returned the next day, and he fed him again. 
After a few days he began to feel a sort of 
attachment for the wandering animal, and the 
more he did for it, the more he liked it. Doing 
a kindness even to a dog will attach us to it. 
Giving makes us more cheerful, while receiving 
may make a man morose and melancholy. 
Some of the gloomiest, saddest, most forlorn 
men I ever saw are those who simply know 
how to hold the strings of their pocket-books, 
and keep all they have. A Hindoo Christian 
who was employed by a missionary was noted 
for his grumbling about hard times. One day 
when the missionary paid the grumbler his 
ten rupees, he handed back one of them 
as a gift to the mission. The next week the 
missionary noticed that his worker was more 
cheerful, that he did not grumble about 



The Blessedness of Giving. 93 

hard times ; and asked him what had caused 
this sudden change to come over him. " Well," 
said he, " I never knew what it was to be 
grateful to God for what He gave me, until 
I began to give something, and that makes 
me happy." Mr. Hamlin, a missionary to 
Constantinople, declares that paupers can be 
made industrious if you will only compel them 
to give something of what they beg to others 
worse off than themselves. 

The practical question is : How can we 
make giving most blessed ? By simply giving 
as God has directed in His Word. Give regu- 
larly, give systematically, give weekly. " Let 
every one of you on the first day of the 
week lay by him in store." This is the only 
command we have in the New Testament for 
the observance of any duties on the Lord's 
Day. It is fatal to the development of the 
best Christian character, when a man makes 
up his mind to wait till he can do something 
great before he will give at all. Such a man 
may make a reputation for stinginess and 
meanness that will ruin his influence. Mr. 
Guyot, a rich Frenchman in Marseilles, by 
great energy amassed a large fortune. He 



04 Milk and Meat. 

refused to give to any object while he was 
making his money, so that he was regarded as 
mean, and, when he appeared in public, he was 
hooted by the populace ; but in Mr. Guyot's 
will was this sentence : " I have noticed the 
hardships of the poor in not being able to 
get fresh water except at great cost, and I 
have labored hard through my life to accumu- 
late money, that I might put water within 
reach of all." Then he goes on to say 
that he wishes his fortune to be devoted to 
the building of an aqueduct for the benefit 
of the poor. Mr. Guyot's praises are now 
sung by the people of Marseilles, but it does 
not atone for a lifetime of bad reputation on 
account of his niggardliness, 

IV. Giving fills Time and Eternity with 
Joyful Surprises. 

I gave one dollar in the first collection ever 
taken for a Baptist church in the city of 
Rome, and, when I read of the converts under 
the labors of our missionaries there now, I 
feel that I have a part in it. It is bearing 
interest every month. Those who gave their 



The Blessedness of Giving. 95 

money to the support of the Telugu mission 
thought for twenty years that there was no 
return, but the interest came pouring in with 
ten thousand converts in one year. Dorcas is 
doubtless being surprised in heaven every day. 
She is still gathering the fruits of the sewing 
society that she organized for the poor. That 
widow who put in the two mites rejoices with 
Dorcas in the returns that are still coming in. 
It will take time and eternity to exhaust the 
influence of their self-sacrificing acts. 



IX. 

COMFORT FOR THE WEAK. 

"And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: 
for My strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly 
therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power 
of Christ may rest upon me. 

"On which account I take pleasure in infirmities, in re- 
proaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for 
Christ's sake : for when I am weak, then am I strong." — 
2 Cor. 12 : 9, 10. 

When a Roman emperor returned from con- 
quest and was given a triumphant entrance 
into the Eternal City, it was customary to put 
a slave in the chariot with him, whose duty 
it was to remind him now and then that he, 
too, was human. As he looked upon the 
trophies of victory and listened to the huzzahs 
of the people, he must not forget that he was 

made of common stuff. Such was something 

96 



Comfort for the Weak. 97 

like the experience of the apostle Paul. He 
won many a victory, and was worthy of many 
a triumphal procession. In the midst of it 
all he was in danger of being exalted above 
measure. So God put with him in the chariot 
of life what he calls a " thorn in the flesh," a 
messenger of Satan to buffet him, and thus 
remind him that he was weak and human. 

The word translated " thorn " may be more 
accurately rendered " stake," which was the 
kind of instrument on which prisoners were 
impaled when thrown from a precipice or 
crucified. It does not mean a splinter under 
the finger-nail, but an experience like being 
impaled upon a stake — unutterable anguish of 
body or mind. 

Just what this thorn in the flesh was, I am 
not certain. After having investigated it as 
thoroughly as possible, I feel a little like the 
old country preacher who made a sermon on 
the subject with seven divisions, each one of 
which was the opinion of a different com- 
mentator, and closed his sermon with a rous- 
ing exhortation in which he insisted that 
nobody knew what it meant. It is probable, 
however, that it was a physical weakness 



oS Milk and Meat. 

which caused Paul intense pain — perhaps sore- 
ness of eves, the result of the blinding on the 
way to Damascus. Whatever it was, he was 
very anxious to get rid of it, and prayed to 
the Lord three times that He would remove it. 
The text is God's answer, in which we have : 

I. A Comforting Fact. 

II. A Comforting Promise. 

III. A Comforting Conclusion. 

IV. A Comforting Privilege. 

I. A Comforting Fact. 

Every fact to the eye of faith may be com- 
forting, because " all things work together for 
good to them that love God." But the most 
comforting fact of which I know is in the 
words : " My strength is made perfect in weak- 
ness." A mother's strength is made perfect in 
weakness. Should the house be on fire, she 
could carry out three or four children, where- 
as, in a quiet time, it w r ould give her pain to 
lift one. The strength of the United States 
might be brought out by a war with Russia, 
but her strength is made more perfect by the 



Comfort for the Weak. 99 

weakness of Russia's starving millions. It is 
better to show our strength by helping the 
weak than by shaking our fists at little govern- 
ments like Chili. 

A student in the Union Theological Semi- 
nary, New York, tells of a sick young man 
who was brought from the hospital to one of 
the rooms in the seminary, that he might be 
nursed by some friends among the students. 
No professor in that seminary did as much 
good for two or three months as this invalid 
young man. His weakness called out the 
strength of the students, who were glad to 
sit up with him all through the night and min- 
ister to him ; and, as they saw his sweet, sub- 
missive, and joyful Christian character, they 
were developed in grace. We cannot estab- . 
lish a professorship of sympathy in our semi- 
naries, but, if such a thing were possible, it 
would go further than anything else toward 
making perfect the strength of the rising min- 
istry. Comforting beyond measure is the 
thought that God's strength is manifested in 
proportion to my weakness. 



i oo Milk and Meat. 



II. A Comforting Promise. 

Paul desired a display of power which 
should put him beyond the need of grace. 
God restrained His power, that He might make 
His grace flow forth. We often pray God to 
use His power, when what we most need is 
His grace; and, when He refuses to display 
His power, we may always claim the promise : 
" My grace is sufficient for thee." 

Only sufficient, not superfluous. Yesterday 
I sat by the side of a young lady whom the 
doctor had given up to die. She was almost 
ashamed to meet God, but with a smile declared 
that she was willing to go, if it was His will. 
"A year ago, however." she said,, "I could not 
have said that." My reply was, " It was not 
needful a year ago that you should say it. 
God's grace is sufficient. He gave you grace 
then for what you needed : He will give you 
grace now in the more trying hour." May God 
heal her, if it be His will ; but, whether she is 
healed or not, she has grace sufficient, and 
that is better than healing without the grace. 
It is better to be in need and have God sup- 



Comfort for the Weak, 101 

ply the need, than to be without need and 
without His supply. Robert Hall preached 
better because he knew what physical suffering 
meant. Richard Baxter wrote better because 
of his bodily infirmity. Spurgeon did the best 
work of his life while an invalid. The suffi- 
ciency of His grace appears clear, when we 
think that it comes to us through Jesus Christ. 
" He was touched with the feeling of our 
infirmities. Himself took our infirmities and 
bore our sicknesses/' Christ knew what it was 
to be weary, weak, and sick. He put Himself 
in man's condition, that we might know how 
He could sympathize with us. 

The Grand Duke Sergius, the Governor of 
Moscow, suspected that the bakers were cheat- 
ing the poor starving people. He ordered the 
police to make an investigation, and they re- 
ported in favor of the bakers. Suspecting that 
something was wrong, the Grand Duke put 
on the garb of a peasant, went among them, 
lived as they lived for a while, and learned 
for himself the suffering of his poor people. 
How close it brought the Grand Duke to the 
starving peasantry, when they learned that, in 
order to ascertain their wants, he had become 



ioj Milk and Meat. 

as one of them ! and how close it should bring 
us to Jesus when we reflect that, in order to 
make plain the sufficiency of His grace, He 
took upon Himself our very weakness, and 
put Himself in the place of need ! For pros- 
perity and adversity, for sickness and health, 
for riches and poverty, for failure and success, 
the promise is always good, 4i My grace is 
sufficient for thee." 

III. A Comforting Conclusion. 

All conclusions drawn by faith are comfort- 
ing. Reason is a servant, not a master. It is 
the most abject slave in the world. It does 
the bidding of ignorance, cf sin, of virtue, of 
vice, of knowledge, of faith, or of unbelief. It 
has little or no moral sense. It works for 
those who assert their mastery over it. I am 
sick. Unbelief says, " Therefore God does not 
treat me kindly ; life is a failure." Faith says, 
" God has in this sickness a message of love 
for me. He may be laying me aside for re- 
pairs ; He is making a need that He delights to 
supply." I have lost by death my dearest 
friend. Unbelief says, " Therefore God made 



Comfort for the Weak. 103 

a mistake/' Faith says, " Heaven is now more 
attractive : I have a treasure there. My friend 
has been saved from the evil to come. Out of 
this death may come more good than out of 
life." Calamity sweeps away my property. Un- 
belief says, " Therefore God has forsaken me." 
Faith says, " God is trying me in the furnace. 
He wants to get rid of the dross, and make the 
gold in me pure." Paul draws the conclusion 
of faith : " Most gladly therefore will I rather 
glory in my infirmities, that the power of 
Christ may rest upon me." 

The word " rest " means to abide, as a tent 
or a house, a protection upon me. T*he polar 
bear is in some respects stronger than man. 
He carries his house about with him. He does 
not need a covering : the cutting wind and 
freezing cold do not affect him. He can lie 
down on a snowbank, with the thermometer 
below zero, and sleep soundly. But I would 
rather be a man needing a house and clothing 
than the polar bear independent of surround 
ings. I glory in the weakness which calls for 
protection. 

A man in Cuba was brought out to be shot, 
and, just as the soldiers were getting ready to 



104 Milk and Meat. 

fire, an American standing by took the Stars 
and Stripes and covered the prisoner with them, 
saying, " Fire if you dare ! To shoot this man 
is to fire upon the United States Government." 
His life was saved. The power of the United 
States rested upon him, and I think if I had 
been in his place I should have worn that flag 
on the streets and slept in it at night. So the 
power of Christ rests upon us. That prisoner 
could have declared himself independent of the 
United States, and met the soldiers in his own 
strength ; but foolish would he have been to 
do so. He let his weakness bring forth the 
strength of this Government. What we need 
is thus to link our weakness with the power 
of Christ. 

Two kinds of forces are not apt to work well 
together. Not many years ago the horse was 
the motive-power in this country. Steam soon 
displaced it, and now it seems that electricity 
may displace steam. It is difficult to harness 
the horse and steam together. How would it 
do to hitch six horses to a steam-engine on the 
way to Chicago ? They would be an obstacle 
on the track. Yet much of our time is 
spent in trying to hitch our little strength to 



Comfort for the Weak. 105 

the omnipotence of God. Instead of using 
what we have in supplying the engine with coal 
and water, submitting to the conditions that 
make speed and power, we want to put our 
strength in the front, and thus we become 
more of a hindrance than a help. 

An electric car stopped in Boston some time 
ago, and one of the passengers asked, " What 
is the matter?" "Oh!" said the conductor, 
"nothing but dirt on the track," The dirt 
broke the current of power. Our strength is 
often but dirt on the track, hindering the 
work of God. What we need above all things 
is to realize that we are weak, and that God's 
strength waits to be made perfect in our weak- 
ness, for He prefers faith in Him to any sort of 
reliance upon ourselves. 

Therefore we may gladly glory in infirmities. 
It is natural for some people, however, to look 
for things about which they may complain. 
They are like little Tommy, who was crying as 
if his heart would break, when he suddenly 
looked up to his mother through his tears, say- 
ing, " Mamma, what was I crying about ?" 
" I think, Tommy," she replied, " it was be- 
cause I would not let you have the bronze 



lo6 Milk and Meat. 

statue on the mantel-piece." " Xo, that was 
not it," continued Tommy, still crying: "it 
was because you would not let me go out in 
the cold ; but I am going to cry some more 
about that statue," and he promptly raised his 
boo-hoo. Tommy was looking for something to 
cry about. He was not anxious to be happy, 
but miserable. He wanted to draw a con- 
clusion of pain rather than joy, and, if we 
have that desire, of course we may be grati- 
fied. 

I am glad that I have not microscopic eyes. 
My eyes are just good enough to see the light, 
without seeing the motes in it ; the flowers, 
without beholding the worms ; the food and 
water, without seeing the millions of animal- 
culae that squirm in them. May we have eyes of 
faith to see the good, and to draw from all the 
facts of life, and the promises of the Word, 
conclusions that comfort our souls ! 

IV. A Comforting Privilege. 

" On which account I take pleasure in in- 
firmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in perse- 
cutions, in distresses for Christ's sake." There 



Comfort for the Weak. 107 

was a time when Paul did not take pleasure 
in infirmities. He tells us that he was anx- 
ious to get rid of the infirmity that clouded 
his life. But when he saw that God supplied 
the grace, he began to love the supply better 
than freedom from infirmity. He saw that it 
was better to have darkness with stars 
brought out by it, than all sunshine and no 
stars ; that the cold winds of winter are as 
necessary for the world's development as the 
cheerful warmth of spring and summer ; that 
the mantle of snow is as good for earth as its 
mantle of grass and flowers. But for the 
snow mantle, the mantle of flowers might not 
be. When a man learns that God's strength 
is perfected through his infirmity, necessities, 
persecutions, and distresses, he will by and by 
begin to welcome them as an angel sent 
from heaven to minister to him. 

Necessity makes most men. If it is neces- 
sary that you should go from the fifty-thou- 
sand-dollar house on the splendid street to 
the five-thousand-dollar one on the humble 
street, rejoice in the necessity. God has in 
that necessity some purpose of love, deeper 
and better than if it had never existed. 



10S Milk and Meat. 

A French shoemaker was taken prisoner by 
a Turkish Sultan, and the Sultan, desiring 
his new palace frescoed, ordered the shoe- 
maker into his presence, and commanded 
him to do the work, because, as he said, all 
Frenchmen were artists. The shoemaker, 
however, was artist only with his awl and wax- 
4 end, in fitting leather to feet, and so remon- 
strated with the Sultan and begged to be 
excused. But the Sultan said : " Frenchmen 
are liars as well as artists, and, unless you do 
the work, I will cut your head off." Thus 
ended the interview. The shoemaker, seeing 
the necessity of painting or dying, decided to 
learn to paint, and with w r hat help he could 
gather, toiling night and day, he soon com- 
pleted the work to the satisfaction of the 
Sultan, who praised him for his skill and 
gave him his liberty. This necessity turned 
the shoemaker into an artist, and but for 
such a necessity he would have died with his 
awl in hand. The necessities of life make 
merchants, physicians, statesmen, preachers, 
mechanics ; indeed, are the moulding forces, 
transmuting men and women into their bet- 
ter selves. 



Comfort f vr the Weak, 109 

The things we do not want are often the 
things we need. What we shrink from, as a 
child from medicine, may be for our healing. 

Here's a story for the children, illustrating 
this fact. A little girl was sent to a neigh- 
bor's house in a mountain district, to bring 
home two geese which had been purchased. 
She had to drive them through a dark wood 
in the evening twilight. She did not fear the 
shadows, but beyond the forest was a house 
with a fierce dog in the yard. This dog she 
feared, and as she approached the house her 
little heart was throbbing in her throat. Sud- 
denly she heard a rattling in the leaves, and a 
wild-cat sprang out upon one of the geese. 
Not realizing her danger, she rushed to the 
help of her charge, and the wild-cat leaving 
the goose, attacked her, and was tearing her 
clothes and flesh, when out from the gate the 
fierce dog bounded, rushed upon the scene, 
and seizing the wild-cat with his sharp teeth 
soon made an end of him. The dog the little 
girl dreaded was just what she needed. She 
thought little of the dangers of the woods ; 
the danger that she feared was really her 
safety. And as we pass through life, amid 



i io Milk and Meat. 

the shadows that gather about us, we dread 
the dogs of adversity, of great distress, more 
than we do the little wild-cats of selfishness 
and sin that waylay us. But our need is 
sometimes that these very dogs with sharp 
teeth should have access to us, and they 
will destroy the things that would destroy 
us. God knows it, and He turns them loose 
upon us. 

Believe me, Christian, the weights of life 
may be its wings ; the sorrows, its joys ; the 
adversity, its true prosperity ; the darkness, 
its most radiant light. The burdens upon us 
may be the lever that lifts us up. Take cour- 
age, then, under any burden. 

" The camel at the close of day 

Kneels down upon the sandy plain 
To have his burden lifted off, 
And rest again. 

" My soul, thou too shouldst to thy knees 
When twilight draweth to a close, 
And let thy Master lift the load, 
And grant repose. 

" The camel kneels at break of day 
To have his guide replace his load, 
Then rises up anew to take 
The desert road. 



Comfort for the Weak. 1 1 I 

So thou shouldst kneel at morning's dawn, 
That God may give thee daily care, 

Assured that He no load too great 
Will make thee bear. ,, 



STIRRING THE XEST. 

" As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her 
spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth 
them on her wings ; so the Lord alone did lead him.'' — 
DEUT. 52 : 11, 12. 

To understand this text, we must study the 
context. The preceding verse gives us a de- 
scription of the wilderness-wandering state. 

It is the state of Jacob before he becomes 
Israel — Jacob the intriguer, rather than Israel, 
the prince of God. But Jacob is as much in 
God's care as Israel, and belongs to Him as 
thoroughly. Jacob is protected : God " com- 
passes him about " and keeps him as the 
"apple of His eye." 

In the verse following our text we have a 

description of the Canaan state. There is 

plenty and stability, with conflict, to be sure ; 

but the land is marked off, the boundaries are 

112 



Stirring the Nest. 1 1 3 

defined, and the people are fixed in their pur- 
pose. 

God's purpose is to lead us out of the un- 
stable, wandering experience to one of more 
fixedness and definiteness of hope and aim ; 
and the method by which He leads us is com- 
pared to the eagle stirring her nest, flutter- 
ing over her young, spreading abroad her 
wings, taking them and carrying them on her 
wings. 

I. God leads us into Higher Experiences 

BY MAKING US UNCOMFORTABLE. 

"As an eagle stirreth up her nest/' Men 
are not apt to seek wealth until they become 
dissatisfied with poverty. We will not seek 
knowledge until we are dissatisfied with igno- 
rance ; and we are not apt to seek larger at- 
tainments in religion unless we are dissatisfied 
with our present condition. God takes away 
from us gold, that He may lead us to seek 
grace ; He takes away our bonds, that He may 
supply us with His bounty; He takes our 
lands, that He may give us larger liberty. 
Many a prosperous business man has been 



i 14 Milk and Meat. 

brought to God by having his financial nest 
stirred; by being made to realize that the com- 
forts which money can bring will not sustain 
one when money departs, and that there is in 
his soul a deeper depth than any that money 
can fill. 

He may stir our social nest. Surrounded by 
pleasant companions, we are not so anxious 
for the companionship of God. We stay at 
home for the social party on prayer-meeting 
evening — we have such delightful, congenial 
company that the absence of God is scarcely 
missed. In love to us, God may compel us to 
move out of these surroundings, or, by a 
change of fortune, let the surroundings move 
off from us ; and when we begin to feel lonely 
we will seek the best of company in commun- 
ion with Him. 

On a tablet in a church of Algiers is the 
name of " Devereux Spratt, 1641." The trav- 
eller naturally inquires what that means, and 
he is told that Devereux Spratt, an English- 
man, was captured with one hundred and twenty 
others in 1641 by the Algerian pirates. He 
was put to work with his fellow - slaves on 
the fortifications around Algiers. Cut off from 



Stirring the Nest. 1 i 5 

congenial company, he looked to God for sym- 
pathy and strength, and God's grace proved, 
as always, sufficient. 

Finding his fellow-captives full of despair, 
he began to cheer them with words of faith 
and hope ; and soon he had gathered about 
him, through his faithful testimony, a little 
band of praying and worshipping Christians. 
Through the influence of his brother in Eng- 
land, after several years, Devereux Spratt was 
ransomed, and the order for his release was 
brought to the fortifications. 

His fellow-captives rejoiced with tears at his 
good fortune, but expressed regret that their 
leader was to leave them. Devereux Spratt, 
however, refused to accept the ransom, and 
remained until he died, a slave among slaves, 
that he might continue to comfort those whom 
God had brought to Christ through him. 
What self-sacrifice ! What heroism ! And yet 
such a character was not made in the draw- 
ing-rooms of London. 

Before his capture Devereux Spratt was an 
indifferent Christian. It took the stirring of 
his social nest, the removing of his pleasant 
surroundings, the driving him to the heart of 



i id Milk and Meat. 

God. to make out of him the hero that he 
was. 

An English rector tells of two women who 
were daughters of a nobleman. One of them 
married a very wealthy man, and gave herself 
up to the pleasures of society. She had all 
that money and position could give. The 
other married a poor man, and through his 
loss of health was driven to work for his 
support. The rector, who knew the sisters in 
their childhood, paid them a friendly visit. 
He found the woman of wealth and fashion 
sad, melancholy, irritable, complaining, and un- 
happy, tired of life. He found the poor sis- 
ter at her wash-tub, cheerful, hopeful, trustful, 
grateful, and joyful. She spoke with a smile 
of the goodness of God in giving her health, 
that she might support her husband and two 
children. 

Why the difference in the character of 
these two women ? 'Tis plain enough that the 
discomforts of the one had made her comfort- 
able, while the comforts of the other had made 
her uncomfortable. 



Stirring the Nest. 1 1 7 

II. That He may lead us on to this 
Higher Experience, God reveals to 
us His Tenderness and Power in the 
Midst of these Discomforts. 

The eagle not only stirs up her nest, giving 
the eaglets discomfort ; but she flutters over 
them and " spreadeth abroad her wings." 
Here is the manifestation of maternal tender- 
ness and strength. In the very act of stirring 
up the nest for their discomfort, she flutters 
over them for their comfort, and spreads 
abroad her wings, to show them that she has 
strength to bear them up. 

Happy is that man who amid the discom- 
forts of life, whether they be financial, social, 
domestic, or physical, gets clearer views of 
God's tender love and great strength, so that 
he may be led to cast himself entirely upon 
Him for support. 

Mrs. Varcroe met on a street in Melbourne 
three ragged boys. " Where do you live, 
boys?" she asked. " Nowhere," replied the 
roughest-looking one. " Where do you sleep 
at night ?" " Anywhere," was the reply. 



i iS Milk and Meat 

"Would you like to be my boys?" she con- 
tinued. " The house of refuge," whispered 
one to the other, as he got a little further 
from her. " No, boys," she said kindly, " I 
don't want to put you in the house of refuge, 
but I thought maybe you would like to let me 
be a mother to you. When you get in that 
notion, come around to my house." And she 
gave her address. The next day about noon 
two boys with very ragged, dirty clothes and 
very clean faces rang the door-bell, and came 
in to say that they had decided to be her 
boys. Thus began the Australian Child Mis- 
sion, which has done such a mighty work for 
God. Those ragged urchins in their discom- 
forts were impressed with the tenderness and 
the ability of Mrs. Varcroe to help them, and, 
prompted by their very discomforts and the 
revelation of this tenderness, they cast them- 
selves upon her strength. 

And so every one, however weak, who will 
cast himself upon the strength of God, will 
be borne up amid uncomfortable surroundings 
into a higher comfort of soul experience. 

God beareth us on His wings. We read in 
another scripture ; " We shall mount up on 



Stirring the Nest, 1 1 9 

wings as eagles/' But when we try to fly on 
wings of hope and love, we find that we have 
the bodies of eagles with the wings of spar- 
rows. We are like penguins on the rock, 
heavy in flesh and no wings to speak of. 
But link that scripture with our text, and 
then we can fly sure enough, for we mount up 
on the wings of God. 



XI. 
PERENNIAL EASTER. 

"And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear 
and great joy ; and did run to bring His disciples word." — 
Matthew 28 : 3. 

To observe Easter or not to observe it ? 
that is the question with many earnest Chris- 
tians. According to the New Testament, it is 
a matter of personal liberty. If you command 
me to observe it, I will not ; for you have no 
authority to command it. You are then like 
the Galatians of whom Paul wrote: "Ye ob- 
serve days, and months, and times, and years. 
I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed labor 
upon you in vain." If you say, " Thou shalt not 
observe it," then I will do it ; for you have 
no right to forbid it. If you forbid it, you 
have violated the principle laid down by Paul 

when he said : " One man esteemeth one day 

120 



Perennial Easter. 1 2 1 

above another ; another esteemeth every day 
alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in 
his own mind. He that regardeth the day re- 
gardeth it unto the Lord, and he that re- 
gardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not 
regard it." I enjoy the observance of Christ- 
mas. It was the brightest day in the calendar 
during my youth ; but, if you command me to 
observe it, I will not. The fact that our rit- 
ualistic brethren have little else than flowers 
and music on Easter, has caused many to 
swing back to the other extreme, and declare 
that no notice should be taken of the day. 
One has as much right to his opinion as the 
other, only let not either put himself up as 
authority. 

I would urge ritualistic Christians to observe 
Lent all the year. It is really a happy time 
with them. They are relieved from the bur- 
' dens of society life. Temperate living is good 
for all days. The projection of Lent and 
Easter into every day would make a rounded 
Christian life ; self-denial married to joy. And 
in the ordinances of the church we see that 
Jesus intended to project these principles into 
all the future. The Lord's Supper gives us 



i 22 Milk and Meat. 

the idea of self-sacrifice for others ; baptism 
gives us the joyful resurrection idea. Put 
these two together, and make them a part of 
your every-day life. 

It is my purpose to analyze the joy of the 
first Easter, and see if we cannot have it 
every day. I like the word "seven," it is so 
Biblical, and I was gratified to find seven 
elements in this joy, a sort of rainbow of 
promise, spanning the Christian life. 



I. We have the Joy of Disappointed 
Unbelief. 

The women come with spices and oil to 
anoint, perhaps to embalm, the Lord. Instead 
of a corpse they find a king. Expecting death 
they find life. Embalming gives place to joy- 
ful worship. They are looking for difficulty 
in rolling the stone away: when they arrive 
the difficulty is overcome. The stone is away, 
and an angel upon it. They had a certain 
kind of faith in Christ. They believed that 
He was true : they loved Him ; but it was 
unbelief as to His resurrection which led them 



Perennial Easter. 123 

to come with spices and oil, and to fear that 
they would not be able to get into the sep- 
ulchre. The joy of this disappointed unbelief 
must have been intense, and it illustrates 
God's way of doing. He delights in surpris- 
ing us ; He gives more than we can ask or 
think. 

The Missionary Union once prepared spices 
and oil for the embalming of the work in 
Telugu. Now that is the most prosperous 
mission in the world. Where their unbelief 
prophesied death there has been abundant life, 
and the joy of their disappointed unbelief has 
filled all Christendom. 

A member of this church asked prayer the 
other day for a friend. Within two weeks that 
friend was converted, greatly to the surprise of 
the praying member, and in a way that he 
little dreamed of. He is to-day revelling in 
the joy of disappointed unbelief. God an- 
swered the prayer more quickly and more 
abundantly than he had anticipated. God de- 
lights to fill our lives with glad surprises of 
grace and power. 



i 24 Milk and Meat. 



II. We have the Joy of Faith Confirmed. 

That open sepulchre was the confirmation 
of every claim which Jesus Christ had made. 
He claimed that He and the Father are one. 
" Before Abraham was, I am," and His resur- 
rection proves it. It is the stamp of Heaven 
upon His divinity. And as the disciples walk 
about in the open sepulchre, they see a sign 
which proves that grave-robbers have not 
been there. The linen cloth which bound His 
head is wrapped up carefully and laid aside. 
He rose from the dead without excitement or 
confusion. Every doctrine He taught, every 
miracle He performed, every hop*e He inspired, 
is confirmed. I know that Jesus rose from 
the dead better than I know that Hannibal 
crossed the Alps, that Caesar was assassinated, 
or that Napoleon invaded Italy. The evidence 
in favor of it is simply overwhelming ; and this 
irresistible proof is a confirmation of all that 
Jesus Christ claims. Not only on the Lord's 
Day, which is the weekly commemoration of 
His resurrection, but on every day in the 
week we may have this confirmation. Nothing 



Perennial Ea± ter. 1 2 5 

strengthens faith like meditation upon the 
resurrection of Christ. It was the theme of 
the apostles, and it has been the song of 
poets. It is the rock foundation of the Chris- 
tian's hope. 

III. We have the Joy of Light from 
Heaven. 

Not the radiance of the angel's face, though 
that was glorious ; not the halo about the 
head of the risen Lord ; not the light of sun 
or of star beaming into the open door of the 
sepulchre, but the purer light of God's prom- 
ise : " Fear not ! " And as I trace through the 
Bible God's " fear nots " I find in them light 
for every experience of life. " Thy word is 
light." The word spoken by the angel was 
steadfast : it gave the disciples comfort ; but 
the words spoken by Christ Himself are even 
sweeter to us than angelic messages. The 
messenger of the King comes with authority, 
but the voice of the King Himself we prefer 
to hear. Every day we may listen to Christ. 
Every morning may be an Easter morning, 
made bright by some promise from His Word. 



126 Milk and Meat 



IV. We have the Joy of Beholding 
Victory. 

There was physical victory. Look at the 
body of Christ as it is taken from the cross — 
clotted with blood ; eyes glazed in death ; hands 
limp at the side, needing the strength of lov- 
ing friends to bear it to the sepulchre. Now 
see him as he walks from the tomb in the 
full vigor of physical manhood ; the marks 
still upon his body, but every physical power 
and function restored. I see in this for the 
Christian the promise and potency of complete 
victory over all the forces that make for 
death. 

There was political victory. That seal, part 
of it attached to the rock of the mountain, 
and a part attached to the stone, none but an 
angel dare touch. It represented the greatest 
political power on earth. The Roman eagle at 
that time swayed the world. But the seal is 
broken, and Roman soldiers are flying before 
the Power that broke it. There is coming a 
time when the " kingdoms of this world shall 
be the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ/' 



Perennial Easter. i 2 7 

and it will be through the risen and reigning 
Lord that this shall be accomplished. And 
every day let us be cheered with the hope of 
complete national victory for our Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

There was also moral victory. The forces of 
evil had for a time prevailed, and the sun of 
righteousness seemed for a while to have gone 
down in gloom. Demons of darkness may now 
dance for joy. The King has been captured. 
Yes, but within the very walls of death He 
has demolished every fortress. Every day 
we may have a joy of anticipated physical, 
national, and moral victory. Truly that makes 
life a perennial Easter. 

V. We have the Joy of telling our 
Joy to Others. 

" They did run to bring His disciples word." 
We pity the man who has a Christ that only 
lived, acted, and died. He may admire Him 
as a hero, honor Him as a martyr, canonize 
Him as a saint ; but he can never have great 
joy in telling others about Him. It is only 
those who believe Christ divine, and, therefore, 
the Saviour from all sin, and with all power 



i 28 Milk and Meat. 

in heaven and earth, who can experience 
ecstasy of heart in proclaiming Him unto 
others. Have you ever had such Easter joy ? 
If not, determine to have it to-day before the 
sun goes down. The joy of telling others 
about the risen Lord is a treasure which every 
Christian may possess ; and just in proportion 
as we turn every day into that sort of Easter, 
we are truly happy and useful Christians. 

VI. We may have the Joy of the Con- 
scious or the Unconscious Presence 
of the Risen Lord. 

At first Mary did not recognize Him. She 
thought it was the gardener — just a common 
man. When she heard Him speak, His familiar 
voice brought recognition, and she exclaimed, 
" Rabboni ! M as she fell before Him to worship. 
Often we recognize the Lord as present w r ith 
us through the tones of His promise. But 
there is another scene a little more precious 
to me than even this. Two men are on their 
way home from the city, where they have 
buried their hopes. They saw Him die, and 
looked upon the stone at the door of the 
sepulchre with the Roman seal upon it. They 



Perennial Easter, 1 2 9 

expected that " it had been He who should have 
redeemed Israel." But He disappointed their 
expectation, because He had not acted just as 
they thought He would. They little dreamed 
that the purpose of redemption would lead 
Him to be crucified. Strange rumors are in 
the air about what women saw and angels 
said ; but they get little comfort from that. 
Sad and depressed, they are on their way 
home, when a stranger falls in with them, and 
begins to explain to them the Scriptures, as 
written by Moses concerning the Messiah. 
Their hearts burn with a peculiar fervor. 
They are uplifted in spirit. To have the risen 
Christ walk with us when we are not conscious 
of His presence, but at the same time to re- 
veal to us His preciousness, and appear in 
such a way as to make our hearts burn with 
love and gratitude, is a joy to be coveted. 

This gives us a still larger Christ. " With- 
out Him was not anything made that was 
made." He is not only Redeemer but Creator. 
Nature is unfallen. The birds sing, the streams 
murmur, the stars shine, the winds whisper the 
glory of God. All natural principles are obe- 
dient to His laws ; only man is sinful and re- 



i $o Milk and Meat. 

bellious. In order, then, to be a true child of 
nature, you must become a child of grace. 
I love to read in the open Bible and in the 
open book of nature of the same almighty, 
loving God and His Son Jesus Christ. Every 
flower is His smile of beauty, every star His 
benediction, every landscape, with its mountains 
and valleys, a sign of His loving favor. The 
risen Christ is one "in whom we live, and move, 
and have our being,'' and He rules by His laws 
in the realm of the natural and spiritual world. 

" The works of God are fair for naught 
Unless we, in the seeing, 
See hidden in the thing the thought 
That animates its being. 

''The outward form is not the whole, 
But clearly has been moulded 
To image forth the inward soul 
Which dimly is unfolded. 

"The shadow pictured in the lake 
By every tree that trembles 
Is cast for more than just the sake 
Of that which it resembles. 

" The dew falls lightly not alone 
Because the meadows need it ; 
It has an errand of its own 
To human souls that heed it. 



Perennial Easter. 1 3 1 

"The stars are lighted in the skies 
Not merely for their shining ; 
But, like the light of loving eyes, 
Have meaning worth divining. 

" Whoever, at the coarsest sound, 
Still listens for the finest, 
Shall hear the noisy world go round 
To music the divinest. 

"Whoever yearns to see aright, 
Because his heart is tender, 
Will catch a glimpse of heavenly light 
In every earthly splendor. 

"So since the universe began, 
And will be till it's ended : 
May soul of nature, soul of man, 
And soul of God be blended." 

Such blending of man's soul with the soul 
of unfallen nature and of God is brought about 
by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ ; 
and we enjoy it every day. 

VII. We have the Joy of Anticipation. 

Jesus said to the women, " Go tell My dis- 
ciples that they shall see Me in Galilee/' Just 
when, just where, we do not know. It was 
simply a promise that they should soon meet 



132 Milk and Meat. 

Him. And so the ascended Christ has said to 
us, "Just as ye have seen Me go up into 
heaven, so shall ye see Me come again in like 
manner." The whole earth is a Galilee waiting 
the appearing of the Lord. Just when, just 
where, we do not know, but that He will come 
in glory is the Christian's most certain hope. 
The joy of meeting Him is enhanced by the 
joy of meeting others w r ho are with Him : 
" For them that sleep in Jesus will God bring 
with Him/' 

The day after James Russell Lowell's wife 
died, sitting in his desolate home, he wrote 
these words : 

"There is a narrow ridge in the graveyard, 
T would scarce stay a child in his race, 
But to me and my thought it is wider 
Than the star-sown vague of space." 

The promise of the coming of the Lord has 
made narrow this " star-sown vague of space,'* 
and makes it but a thin veil between us and 
the objects of our love. It brings us, perhaps, 
within a few hours of meeting our risen Lord 
and glorified friends. Then, ah ! then, an ever- 
lasting Easter ! 



XII. 
CHARIOTS AND MANTLES. 

"My father, my father, thou chariot of Israel, r.nd the horse- 
men thereof ! ''—2 Kings 2 : 12. 

The translation I give of this text is ap- 
proved by many eminent authorities ; and 
whether it be strictly correct or not, the idea 
is certainly implied that Elijah himself was the 
chariot addressed by Elisha. Elisha was called 
of God and ordained by Elijah. His master 
informs him that he is going to leave the 
earth. A proof of the future life is needed. 
Elijah must not die a natural death, but must 
be carried up miraculously. He goes to see 
the schools of the prophets w r hich he had estab- 
lished at Gilgal, Bethel, and Jericho. Elisha 
keeps with him, determined that his master shall 
not leave him for a moment. They cross the 
Jordan in view of the students of the college 
at Jericho. The waters are miraculously di- 

133 



i 34 Milk and Meat. 

vided, and the two prophets go on toward the 
desert together. 

There is a scene in heaven. A large oom- 
pany of angels are summoned to go and bring 
the faithful prophet to his final home. These 
angels are called in Scripture chariots of God. 
The word cherub means chariot. As Elijah 
and Elisha journeyed, the angelic host appears, 
and, sweeping down before them, Elijah is car- 
ried up as in a chariot of fire. Can we 
imagine the glory of their journey through 
the skies as, passing planet and star, onward 
and upw T ard they go until they come in sight 
of the golden gates which are throw r n wide 
open, and all heaven shouts at the entrance 
of the faithful prophet? 

The meaning of the text is that Elijah was 
the strength and glory of Israel. Chariots and 
horsemen of an army were considered its 
special strength. From this we learn three 
things : 

I. God shows His Power and Glory 

THROUGH THE INDIVIDUAL. 

Organizations, societies, and institutions are 
of value ; but the individual is the most impor- 



Chariots and Mantles. 135 

tant factor in the advancement of God's king- 
dom. Christ did not become an institution, 
but a man — " The Word became flesh, and dwelt 
among us." Elijah founded institutions of 
learning, but all combined were not equal to 
himself. The tongues of flame at Pentecost 
sat upon each of the disciples, not upon the 
company as a whole. God bears a personal 
relation to us, and through our personality He 
purposes to reach mankind. Of course an 
organization of many personalities may be 
stronger than any one personality ; but let us 
realize that, in God's economy, He wants, first 
of all, the individual prepared, equipped for 
His service. 

And the power of each person in God's 
kingdom is in proportion to his fatherhood. 
" My father, my father, thou strength of Israel, 
and glory thereof!" Elijah was the spiritual 
father of Elisha. He led him to leave his 
oxen and fields, and devote himself wholly to 
God ; and the individuals who win most souls 
to Christ, who have thus the largest spiritual 
fatherhood, are the real chariots and horsemen 
of Israel. "They that turn many to righteous- 
ness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever." 



1 36 Milk and Meat. 

Mental acquisition, financial strength, social 
position will not make us such fathers of 
Israel ; only the enduement of power from 
on high can form such chariots and horsemen. 
An individual full of the Holy Ghost is more 
powerful than a hundred organizations depend- 
ing upon numbers and strength. Elijah stood 
alone at one time with God only on his side, 
and Elijah and God were stronger than all 
the forces of evil against them. As man, 
woman, child, let us link ourselves with God, 
and let Him pour His power through our per- 
sonality; and, that He may do this, let us seek 
the best character possible. 

II. God raises up Men of Power to take 
the Places of those He calls away. 

As the chariot went up, Elijah's mantle fell 
down. This rough garment of skin was the 
symbol of authority and powder. It was like 
the rod of Moses — nothing in itself, but 
chosen of God as a sort of symbol of His 
own omnipotence. This divine power Elisha 
needed : (1) To remove obstacles. The Jordan 
was in the way and must be divided. Its 



Chariots and Mantles 



j/ 



swift, deep current could not be waded nor 
bridged. So we have in the path of our work 
Jordans of difficulty, and we need the mantle 
of pow r er to smite them asunder. (2) To 
remedy evils. The poisoned water must be 
made sweet, and salt in itself will not sweeten 
it. The power of God, symbolized by the 
rough mantle, gave purity to the waters of 
Samaria. There is death in the pot, and the 
antidote of poison must be supplied. Men are 
covered with leprosy : the divine healing is 
needed. The fact is, this world is full of evils 
which need to be remedied, and only the 
divine power can cure them perfectly. 

III. We need it to make a Little go a 
Great Way. 

Elisha, invited to the home of the widow, 
must use miraculous power, that the cruse of 
oil and the meal in the barrel might not fail. 
Jesus could make a few loaves and fishes feed 
the five thousand ; and only Jesus can do this. 
When we look to the w r ork to be done and 
the means at hand with which to do it, it is 
as five fishes before five thousand men ; it is as 



138 Milk and Meat. 

the little oil and meal with months of necessity 

before us ; but this divine power can multiply 
the fishes ; can increase the oil and meal. We 
do not give as much to the glory of Christ as 
we should. His treasury may be emptied from 
stinginess, and those who do give all they 
can, who put at God's disposal the little that 
they have, need the God of Elisha to make 
that little go a long way. Oh. the millions of 
heathen to be reached, with a few Chris- 
tians and little money to-day at God's disposal 
for it ! 

IV. We xeed this Divine Power to raise 
the Dead. 

Men as dead spiritually, as was Lazarus 
physically, are at our doors. We cannot argue 
them into life ; our teaching is powerless. 
Only the voice of God can bring them forth : 
and it is only through our consecration, 
through our wearing the mantle which sets us 
apart,' that God speaks to the dead. 

Now the question is. How can we get tins 
mantle of power ? 1. By intensely desiring it. 
Elisha would not be put off. Elijah told him 



Chariots and Mantles, 1 39 

to leave, that he might test his faith ; but his 
mind was made up to keep his eye on the 
master, for he had the promise if he saw him 
going up he would have a double portion of 
his spirit. We are told that the soldiers in 
Xerxes' army must hear the crack of whips be- 
hind their backs to make them march to battle. 
Such a spirit will never be endued with power. 
Only those who seek this enduement above 
everything else will receive it in fulness. 

2. By patient waiting upon God. The 
apostles chose, in the place of Judas, one who 
had companied with them all the time that 
the Lord Jesus went in and out among them, 
beginning with the baptism of John until the 
day that He was received up from them. 
Elisha kept close to the prophet before his 
translation, and it was upon those who kept 
close to Christ before His translation that the 
Spirit of God came ; and it is those who to- 
day walk with God — keep close to His side 
— that will receive the mantle of power. The 
men who learn the most of the earth-life of 
Christ, who grow in grace and in knowledge 
of Him, are most apt to be used by the Holy 
Spirit. 



140 Milk and Meat. 

;. By appropriation. The mantle which 
dropped from Elijah did not fall upon the 
shoulders of Elisha : he had to pick it up : and 
God does not endue us with power in spite 
of ourselves. The Holy Spirit descended after 
the ascension of Christ. That is the mantle 
that Jesus, so to speak, dropped from Himself 
as He went into the skies : and we must 
by faith appropriate the Spirit. We must 
honor Him and expect Him to bless us. We 
are saved by faith in Christ ; we are made 
powerful by faith in the Spirit. Xo man truly 
wears the mantle of God who looks upon the 
Spirit as neuter — as a mere influence. We 
must believe that He is with us — the very God 
— ready to work through our faith. 

4. By using at once the faith and consecra- 
tion we have. Elisha, as soon as he picked up 
the mantle, started back at once toward 
Jericho ; and on reaching the Jordan he smote 
the waters, crying out : " Where is the Lord 
God of Elijah?" and at the touch of the man- 
tle the waters divided again. He did not 
think of folding up this sacred garment, and 
laying it aside as a memento of him who was 
gone : he looked upon it as for use : and so 



Chariots and Mantles. 1 4 1 

we should regard the presence of the Holy 
Spirit, who is not here on a holiday. His 
business is to work mightily through us. He 
is anxious that we should trust Him and use 
the power that He is willing to give. We are 
the Elishas who represent the ascended Elijah. 
As Christ was in the power of the Spirit, — led 
by Him ; working through Him ; raised from the 
dead by Him, — so we are to have the same 
power. "And greater works than these shall 
ye do, because I go to My Father." Let us 
believe that the reign of the Spirit is the reign 
of power, and make our expectations great and 
our plans large. 

V. After Men like Elijah have finished 
their Work, God takes them to 
Heaven in an Appropriate Manner. 

Elijah means a chariot, and he was taken up 
in a chariot of fire. He was himself a flame 
of fire, consuming evil, purifying the good. 
The trend of his whole life was like the 
chariots and horsemen of an army — the glory 
of Israel ; and it was appropriate that he 
should pass out of this world into heaven after 



1 42 Milk and Meat. 

the manner in which he lived; and whether 
the eyes of men see it or not, such is the de- 
parture of all who are true to God. We are 
saved by grace, but in a sense we make our 
own chariots in which we ride to heaven. 

Paul said : 44 I have fought the good fight ; 
finished my course ; kept the faith;" and when 
we think of his dying, there gather about him 
the angels of light from his past life — glorious 
chariots of light, indeed, which accompany 
him into heaven. The soul of John Huss went 
up literally in a chariot of fire ; and yet, as we 
think of his martyrdom in the meadow outside 
the walls of Constance, the glories of his faith- 
ful life gather about the scene, and, like the 
sunset at the close of day, the very clouds 
which hover about his death are made beautiful. 
When we think of William Carey's death, there 
is suggested the missionary's glory — the angels 
of mercy and the converted heathen attending. 
Shaftesbury and John Howard go up in a chariot 
of philanthropy. Jerry McAuley's departure is 
in a chariot of glory made by a life of devotion 
to the lost of New York. I notice that this 
chariot came for Elijah while he was at work. 
Jericho was a wicked place, and at this centre 



Chariots and Mantles, 143 

of wickedness he had established a theological 
seminary. It was here he made his last ad- 
dress ; it was here he did his last faithful 
service ; and near this wicked Jericho comes 
the chariot of God to take him. May we all 
wear the mantle of power, that we may depart 
in the chariot of glory ! 



XIII. 

THE UNFAILING BARREL AND 
CRUSE. 

" The barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil 
fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by 

Elijah." — i Kings 17 : 16. 

God's Method often changes, while His 
Purpose remains the Same. 

His purpose was to preserve the prophet. 
For a while the brook and the ravens served 
his purpose. But the brook dried up, and in- 
stead of ordering the ravens to bring w r ater 
also, he sends the prophet to a poor widow of 
Zarephath. Thus God's plan of keeping His 
people is constantly changing, while His loving 
purpose remains the same. Joseph was pre- 
served equally well in the house of Potiphar, 
in the jail, and as ruler of Egypt. God's pur- 

144 



The Unfailing Barrel and Cruse 145 

pose was to raise up a man who would deliver 
Israel from their task-masters. He kept him 
at first in the ark of bulrushes, then in the 
loving arms of his mother, then in the court 
and schools of Egypt, and then in the back side 
of the desert. Daniel fared equally well as a 
boy in the palace of the king, as an officer 
over the provinces of Persia, and as a servant 
of God among the lions. If we are children 
of God, His mind is made up to take us to 
heaven, and to give us just the treatment that 
will best fit us for the place. If He gives us 
w r ealth, it is because He knows that wealth is 
the best for us ; if He gives us poverty, it is 
because He knows that we will be best pre- 
served by struggle. Trust His wisdom and 
goodness to do the right thing. 

When all things seem to be against us, re- 
member that God is for us, and He never ceases 
to be master of the situation. The burgomaster 
of Hamburg bade Mr. Onken cease holding 
religious services, and, holding up his hand 
before him, angrily asked, " Do you see that 
little finger ? As long as I can move that little 
finger, I will put down you Baptists." "Yes," 
replied Onken, " I see your little finger, and I 



1 40 Milk and Meat. 

also sec a great arm which you cannot sec. 
As long as the great arm of God is lifted in our 
behalf, your little finger will have no terror 
for us." It is not our part to be looking at 
the little fingers against us, but at the great 
arm that is for us. Those who see the great 
arm need not fear ten thousand little fingers. 
Whatever relation these fingers may bear to 
us, we may be calm in the assurance that the 
purpose of God is His glory in our preserva- 
tion, and, though His plans may change, His 
purpose remains the same. 

We learn also from this unfailing barrel and 
cruse that 

God has a Way of selecting whom He 
pleases as Agents to carry out His Will. 

Jesus tells us that there were many widows 
in Sarepta who were passed by, while this 
one was selected. She was not the one we 
should have chosen. We should have looked 
for a house where there was a little more 
meal and oil and wood. A poor woman 
gathering sticks outside the city gates was the 
last person to be thought a fit host for the 
prophet. But God thought otherwise. And so 



The Unfailing Barrel and Cruse. 147 

He thinks to-day in the selection of His 
workers. Who would have thought of R. W. 
McAll as the proper person to undertake the 
evangelization of Paris — an Englishman over 
fifty years of age, who could not speak a word 
of French ? And yet he was the man of God's 
choice. Jerry McAuley, the river pirate, would 
hardly have been chosen by us as the man 
above all others to bring the bread of life to 
the outcasts of New York. If we had met 
Saul on his way to Damascus, it w r ould not 
have occurred to us that this cruel persecutor 
was the man chosen of God to take the lead 
in building up the cause he was trying to de- 
stroy. God is constantly surprising the world 
by selecting agents we in our wisdom have 
rejected. Bunyan, the tinker, was no fit man to 
write such a book as "The Pilgrim's Progress." 
John Wesley and George Whitefield, the bisnops 
thought, were not the men to preach to the 
people. Mr. Booth was doing no good with 
his wild methods of work among the poor in 
the Whitechapel district of London, and the 
bishop must needs bid him change his plans 
or leave the church. Mr. Moody was not even 
a fit man to speak and pray in a prayer-meet- 



1 48 Milk and Meat. 

ing, and his pastor kindly told him so. But 
God had a mission for him and for all these 
men. Whom the Lord has chosen, let us 
not reject. God ordains many a man for 
mighty work whom any council for ordination 
would be ashamed to lay hands upon. He is 
constantly passing by tall Eliab, that He may 
select little David. It may be because little 
David is willing to be used and give Him the 
glory. Whatever may be said about the men 
as to whose fitness for great w r ork God and 
the world have different opinions, they were all 
willing to be used. The widow of Sarepta, 
though she felt unable, was willing to entertain 
the prophet ; and our usefulness depends far 
more upon our willingness than upon our 
ability. If you are downright willing to be 
used of God, He can make you capable and 
He will. " My people shall be a willing peo- 
ple." Willingness is capacity, for what else 
we need God is pledged to supply. 

Let us learn again from this unfailing barrel 
and cruse that 

in helping Others we help Ourselves. 
If the widow had kept her little meal and oil 



The Unfailing Barrel and Cruse. 149 

for her own use, she and her son had starved. 
Dividing multiplied it. Such is God's arith- 
metic. To keep is to lose. To hold and hoard 
is to diminish. To * scatter is to increase. 
Men who put their bodies wholly into the 
service of God with implicit trust in Him do 
not break down from overwork. It is the 
worry, fretting, and chafing resulting from a 
failure thus to commit to God which shatters 
nerves and calls for protracted vacations. 
After one has been in the pastorate for many 
years, there is danger of his barrel of sermons 
failing, and, if it does, it is because his think- 
ing and time have not been wholly given to 
God. The lad with the few loaves and fishes 
had the pleasure of seeing them multiplied into 
enough to feed the five thousand. The secret 
of such success was that he committed his 
little supply to Jesus, and He always sees to 
it that what is given wholly to Him shall 
not fail, but multiply. Churches and enter- 
prises fail for the lack of consecration. If we 
use for God every barrel and cruse of money, 
time, talent, and opportunity we have, there 
will be plenty and to spare. 



XIV. 

TREASURES IN HEAVEN. 

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where 
moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through 
and steal : but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, 
where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves 
do not break through nor steal." — Matthew 6 : 19, 20. 

THERE are four ways by which we may lay 
up treasures in heaven. 

I. By giving of our Possessions to the 
Needy. 

" If thou wilt be perfect/' said Jesus to the 
rich young man, " go and sell that thou hast 
and give to the poor, and THOU SHALT HAVE 
TREASURE IN HEAVEN." If you wish to ex- 
press some of your money from earth to 

heaven, give it to those who need. Dispense 

150 



Treasures in Heaven. 151 

with your luxuries, that you may suppiy their 
necessities. 

" Charge them that are rich in this world, 
that they be not high-minded, nor trust in un- 
certain riches, but in the living God, who 
g'iveth us richly all things to enjoy." If we 
have abundance, it is God's rich gift. He 
means for us to enjoy it. But how may I 
enjoy it ? By holding and hoarding it ? Not 
at all. Read on : " that they do good, that 
they be rich in good works, ready to distrib- 
ute, willing to communicate. " The way to 
enjoy God's rich gifts is to share them with 
others. Those who give their money get most 
pleasure out of it. And the joy here is but a 
tithe of the joy it brings hereafter, for thus 
they " lay up for themselves a good foundation 
against the time to come, that they may lay 
hold upon life that is life indeed." With this 
blessing of giving contrast the curse of hoard- 
ing by fraud and holding by covetousness, as 
described by James. " Go to, ye rich men, 
weep and howl for your miseries that shall 
come upon you. Your gold and silver is 
cankered, and the rust of them shall be a 
witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as 



i 5 2 Milk and Meat. 

it were fire." Money hoarded will rust; but 
the rust gathers on the soul that hoards it, and 
burns it like fire. Men who refuse to do good 
with their money are thus in a little hell on 
earth. Their souls are being burnt by a slow 
combustion. By and by angels who see their 
spirits doubtless begin to look upon them 
as charcoals of immortality. Immortal, but 
charred and blackened by the fires of covet- 
ousness. That which, if used for God, becomes 
a treasure in heaven, when held only for self 
mars the best treasure we have on earth — our 
characters. 



II. By ministering to the Needy. 

Many of us have little money. Can we ex- 
pect to lay up much treasure in heaven ? In 
the 25th of Matthew we have the assets of a 
useful life. " I was thirsty, and ye gave Me 
drink : I was sick, and ye visited Me : I was in 
prison, and ye came unto Me." Personal min- 
istry to those from whom you expect to 
receive no earthly reward is a treasure in 
heaven. The idea of merit for such work is 



Treasures in Heaven. 153 

excluded. The righteous could not remember 
that they had done anything worthy of men- 
tion. It was done for the sake of Christ, and 
those who work purely for His glory would 
not detract from that glory by claiming 
heaven on the merit of their good deeds. It 
was those who had really done nothing that 
were surprised to hear that they had not done 
enough to merit salvation. The lack of 
money, which brings us into personal contact 
with the needy, is a great blessing to us. 
And even if we have money, we ought not 
to be satisfied with working by proxy. A 
wealthy lady in New York determined, the 
week of her conversion, to employ a woman 
for all her time to work among the poor. 
She received her reports every month and 
rejoiced in the good being done. One day 
her missionary reminded her that when Jesus 
healed the sick He usually touched them, and 
suggested that it might be well for her to go 
with her on some of her rounds. She con- 
sented, and after one day's visiting she de- 
clared that she had been more blessed than by 
the whole year's working by proxy. The poor 
and suffering often need the hand-shake and 



154 Milk and Meat. 

kind word more than they need money. Give 
both, and wait for the reward in heaven. 

III. By rejoicing in whatever our Faith- 
fulness to Christ may bring upon us. 

" Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, 
and persecute you, and shall say all manner of 
evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, 
and be exceeding glad : for great is your re- 
ward in heaven." While Hooper, the martyr, 
was at the stake, some one reminded him that 
life was very sweet. "Yes," he replied, "life 
is sweet, but eternal life is sweeter." He was 
willing to sacrifice the less for the greater. 
Demosthenes was asked if he did not fear 
that Philip would take off his head. " If he 
does," was the reply, "the Athenians will give 
me an immortal one." Whatever loss we sus- 
tain for the sake of Christ in this world, we 
may be certain that He will make it up to us 
in the next. 

Obstacles. 

The context teaches us that a double vision 
is in the way of our laying up treasures in 



Treasures in Heaven. 155 

heaven. " If thine eye be single, thy whole 
body will be full of light," and thou wilt not 
make mistakes in thy investments. The man 
of double vision sees two objects at once 
without seeing either one clearly. He tries to 
look at two things at the same time. In his 
service he sees Christ and self — Christ and the 
world. He thinks that of course he ought to 
serve God, but at the same time he must look 
after number one. This leads to an attempt 
at double service, and " no man can serve two 
masters. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." 
God would not share His worship with the false 
gods in Israel's time ; He will not now share 
His service with any one. It must be a whole- 
hearted service. You cannot serve yourself 
during the week and God on Sunday. Every 
day, every .dollar must be His. " But must I 
not support my family?" If you do not, you 
are worse than an infidel. In supporting your 
family you may be serving God as truly as 
if you were preaching in a pulpit. Only put 
God first, and ask Him how you ought to 
support your family. If you have a new 
house to furnish, consult Him as to the fur- 
niture. Ask Him to make it plain as to what 



156 Milk and Meat. 

kind of furniture will best accord with your 
means and the spirit of sacrifice which every 
Christian ought to have. Only let God be 
first, and family, country, business, friends — 
indeed, everything and everybody second. 

It is said of Judge Black, of Georgia, that, 
when he was a young lawyer, he was invited 
to deliver an address of welcome to the Gov- 
ernor of the State on Monday evening. He 
took great pains to prepare his address, but a 
telegram came on Monday, saying that the 
Governor's visit would be deferred till Wednes- 
day evening. Mr. Black at once wrote the 
committee that a previous engagement would 
prevent his being present on Wednesday even- 
ing. Few persons besides the pastor of his 
church knew that the previous engagement was 
the regular weekly prayer-meeting which the 
young Christian lawyer had set apart as sacred- 
ly devoted to the public worship of God ; and 
no service to man or State, though it might 
be for his own promotion, could make him 
swerve from his purpose. He had a single 
vision and single-eyed service. No wonder God 
has blessed him. He usually honors those who 
honor Him. 



Treasures in Heaven. 157 

Anxiety about the future keeps many a one 
from laying up treasure in heaven. The ques- 
tion, What shall we eat, drink, and wear on 
earth ? leads many to lay up for the future of 
time and leave out of view the future of eter- 
nity. " Go to the ant, thou sluggard/' said Solo- 
mon ; " consider her ways and be wise/' And 
that is good advice for to-day. We should pro- 
vide for the winters we know are coming. But 
the ant has been the only teacher for most of 
us long enough. Let us listen to Jesus as He 
says, in substance, " Go to the birds and lilies, 
ye doubtful, saving ones. Consider their ways 
and be wiser. The birds gather not into barns, 
but the heavenly Father feedeth them. The 
lilies toil not, nor spin, and yet Solomon in all 
his glory was not arrayed like one of these." 
If I must choose one or the other, I should 
rather be the bird or lily, without barn or ward- 
robe, trusting God for the future, than the 
prudent ant taking care of myself and leaving 
God out of mind. But, after all, there is no 
quarrel between Solomon's ant and the birds 
of Christ. Our prudent foresight should not 
prevent us from casting all care for the future 
upon God, while we meet the responsibilities of 



Milk and Meat 

the present ; and if, to meet our present re- 
sponsibilities, we find that we have no store left 
for winter, don't be unduly alarmed. The God 
of the birds is your God. " Trust in the Lord. 
and do good : so shalt thou dwell in the land. 
and verily thou shalt be fed." 

Inducements. 

If heaven is our treasure-house, we will not 
be loath to give up to God the treasures of 
earth when He chooses to take them. You 
have in your home some jewels dearer to you 
than life. You would, of course, like to keep 
them; but the home on earth, much as you 
prize their presence in it, is not your treasure- 
house. God takes them, that He may in that 
way help you to lay up treasures in heaven. 
It is 'easier to give them up, if the treasures we 
prize most are in heaven. A mother, whose 
dissipated son lay at the point of death, asked 
her pastor to come and see him ; and, that she 
might prepare her boy for his visit, she told 
him how, when he was a little child, he was 
very sick, given up by all to die ; and how she 
prayed that he might live, even going so far as 
to tell God that she could not stand his death. 



Treasures in Heaven. 1 59 

and that she would take all the responsibility 
of his living. " Mother," said the dying boy, 
" you made an awful mistake/' That mother 
was laying up her treasure on earth, and could 
not, therefore, bear to lose one from her treas- 
ure-house. Those whose treasures are in 
heaven will be saved from such an awful mis- 
take. 

If our treasures are in heaven, it will be easy, 
when the time comes, for us to go to them. 
" Where the treasure is, there will the heart be 
also." The soldier, as he leaves home where 
his treasures are, feels that the weight of the 
whole house is on his heart, and he goes from 
a sense of duty. But when the discharge is 
given after the victory has been won, how 
gladly he hastens to his loved ones ! A gentle- 
man in Brooklyn said that, during his passage 
across the Atlantic, he was sea-sick every day; 
but after six months of sight-seeing, he was 
glad to go on board for another eight days of 
nausea. What made him willing was, that all 
his dear ones were on this side. It was the 
desire to go to his treasures. Laying up treas- 
ures in heaven is a good preparation for an 
exchange of worlds. 



ibo Milk and Meat. 

Laying up treasures in heaven makes us 
" use this world as not abusing it." If all our 
treasures are on earth, we are apt to be the 
slaves of the earth's maxims and money. The 
Sermon on the Mount is very practical. It 
deals largely with our relations to one another. 
And the most practical men on this earth to- 
day are the men who are brave enough to do 
right, whether riches or poverty follow, because 
they are not living simply for what this world 
can give. They are the only real freemen. 
Such men were the reformers who died for 
truth. The}' are not the slaves, but the masters 
of the spirit of the age. They seek the highest 
good of all, rather than the good opinion of 
any. They use their money in helping others. 
They are independent, caring little for life or 
death, but everything for the true and the 
right. Their face is toward the sunrise. No 
darkness can discourage them ; no reverses can 
overwhelm them. They wish to be and do 
rather than to seem. They are the real men 
and women. God help us to be such ! 



XV. 

SHADOW AND SUBSTANCE. 

" Our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none 
abiding." — i Chron. 29 : 15. 

A Shadow is Nothing. 

It is the absence of something. Take away 
light, and the nothing that remains is shadow. 
Put ten thousand shadows together, and you 
have nothing. Nothing multiplied by billions 
is nothing. And our days on the earth are as a 
shadow in that they are nothing in length com- 
pared with the great substance, eternity, that lies 
before us. A bird comes to this world every 
thousand years and takes away in its beak one 
grain of sand, and after the entire globe has 
been removed, a grain at a time every thousand 
years, eternity has just begun. An angel 
strokes with a feather a ball of steel as big as 

this earth, once in ten thousand years, and 

r6i 



Milk and Meat. 

after the -size ball of steel has been worn 

away by the feather-stroke, eternity has just 
begun. We cannot grasp the illustrate 

we can see how as n is the little 

speck of time that marks the limit of human 
life. 

Treated as an end of living this little time is 
nothing in importance ; but, as a means to an 
end, it is everything, because it is all we have. 
As the means of preparing for eternity, who can 
estimate the importance of these few years' 
A general has just fifteen minutes to put his 
disordered army in line of battle before the 
enemy marches against him. Let him be 
quick about it — his honor and happiness for all 
the future depend upon the issue ! A nation in 
chains or a nation free will be the result. The 
general sits down to a -game of cards, declaring 
that he must enjoy the fifteen minutes at his 
disposal. Fool ! fool ! ! you say. and we agree 
with you. Those fifteen minutes as a means to 
an end were all-important. Every second of 
them was of diamond worth. But as an end. 
used for the little pleasure they could give. 
they were a shadow indeed. Shame upon any 
general who would try to gather up the shadow 



Shadow and Substance. 163 

while he forgets the substance to which the 
shadow leads. In condemning him, we do but 
condemn the men and women who spend time 
in seeing how much pleasure they can get out 
of it — while they forget eternity, to which time 
is leading. We laugh at the poor fool whom 
David Crockett found fighting his shadow in a 
freshly ploughed field as a preparation for the 
fighting he expected to do on the following 
election day; but it is too serious a matter to 
laugh about when we see immortal men treat- 
ing the shadows of life as if they were the only 
true substance. The sight made our Lord 
weep, and we may well mingle our tears with 
His. 

The Days of the Wicked are as a 
Shadow in that they are Poisonous, 
Dark, and Gloomy. 

The plant that grows in the dark generates 
poison. Continuous darkness depresses, withers, 
kills. I have read of some cruel experimenters 
in science who kept a poor boy in a dark cell 
from the age of five to twenty. When he 
came out he was blind, emaciated, tremulous, 



1 64 Milk and Meat. 

and idiotic. Whether the story is true or not, 
it might be true. It is sadly true, morally and 
spiritually, with those who prefer the darkness 
of unbelief to the light of faith. And when 
they take time to reflect they must be conscious 
of it. The sins of the past are darkness. The 
sinful nature of the present is darkness. The 
future with its terrible results is darkness. Not 
a ray of hope pierces its gloom. The future 
grows darker and darker till it strikes the 
" blackness of darkness forever " of which Jude 
speaks. A busy life may make you forget it, 
the whirl of pleasures may drive it from mind ; 
but in moments of reflection you must admit 
that gloom gathers about you. Thoughts of 
God and eternity sadden and depress. A life 
spent in sin is a shadow of worse than Egyptian 
darkness. Truly it can be felt, for it pierces 
the soul like black daggers. 

The Days of a Christian, on the other 
Hand, are as a Shadow in that they 
are Refreshing and Pleasant. 

See that caravan toiling across the desert! 
Their water-supply is out. Weary, foot-sore, 



Shadow and Substance. 165 

with parching lips and heated brows, they 
trudge along almost ready to drop down and 
die. But look yonder in the distance ! On 
the horizon there is an appearance like trees. 
Is it a mirage ? They quicken their pace, hope 
and fear struggling for the mastery. The out- 
lines of the trees are more distinct. Strength 
returns, while they run in their eagerness to 
reach the cool, refreshing spot. Now they are 
in the shade, lying on the green grass and 
drinking from the crystal spring that gurgles 
up before them. They look out upon the 
desert about them with gratitude that they 
have escaped its scorching rays and blistering 
sands. How refreshing the shadows that now 
protect them, only those who have had their 
experience can conceive. 

Do you not remember a time when you were 
trudging through the desert of your sins, the 
scorching heat of conviction blistering your 
soul ? Weary, thirsty, fainting, ready to die, 
you caught a glimpse through some promise 
in the Bible of rest and refreshment beneath 
the atoning merit of Jesus Christ. You 
hastened to Him and found rest for your soul. 
Your thirst was quenched, and you have the 



1 66 Milk and Meat. 

assurance that no thirst will ever return that 
cannot be quenched in Him. Safe, you now 
look out upon the desert of sin, through which 
you have come, with exultant gratitude. You 
are under the shadow of " a great rock in a 
weary land," with the trees that bear sweetest 
fruits growing about you. From their boughs 
you pluck, eat, and rejoice. Yet you will find 
some in the blistering desert of sin sagely 
telling those who live in the refreshing shades 
of God's love and mercy that they do not think 
the Christian's life is a happy one. How do 
you know ? Did you ever try it ? You have 
never for a moment known what it is to repose 
under the shadow of God's wing. You are a 
blind man criticising color, a deaf man criticis- 
ing music. You have no right to an opinion 
until you have tried the service of God as 
faithfully as you have the service of sin. 
Those of us who have tried both are of David's 
opinion, that it is better to be a doorkeeper in 
the house of the Lord than to dwell in the 
tents of wickedness. 

It is better to have one hour of the pure 
joy Christ gives than years of the pleasures of 
sin. You are not a competent witness until 



Shadozv and Sitbstancc. 167 

you have tested Christ. Give Him your heart 
and life; and, if He does not treat you better 
than the Devil has, then say so. But don't 
express any opinion until you can know from 
personal experience what you are talking about. 
There are some who call themselves Christians 
whose faces look like a funeral procession. 
But their funereal character is caused by their 
lack of what God would have them possess. 

Heaven, our final home, is a very happy 
place ; and our Father wants us to be happy 
every step of the journey thither. " Rejoice 
evermore." " Rejoice in the Lord always: and 
again I say, Rejoice." I tell you there is nothing 
funereal in the religion of Paul. 

The Days of all on Earth are as a Shadow 
in that they tell us what the sub- 
stance will be. 

Shadow implies substance. If I see the 
shadow of a house, horse, or man, I look 
up expecting to see a house, horse, or man. 
The shadow outlines the substance. Tell me 
how you spend these days of shadow, and T 
will tell you on the authority of God's Word 
how you will spend the substance, eternity. 



1 68 Milk and Meat. 

This life is certainly an index to the life be- 
yond. Is your life here one of faith in Christ, 
obedience to His will, struggle against sin, 
service to God and man, the substance that 
follows will be heaven. I cannot tell you all 
of it. Its golden streets, jasper walls, and 
pearly gates show that it is a place prepared 
in no niggardly way. It means love, holiness, 
harmony, perfect service, and the infinite joy 
that is sure to accompany these things. Put 
together all the words in Webster's Dictionary 
that mean something good, and then write on 
a page by itself in large letters the word 
HEAVEN as equal to them all, and you 
have about the reality. It is surely worth 
while to spend the shadows of earth in God's 
service with the hope of such a substance 
before us. 

On the other hand, if your life is spent in 
unbelief, sin, and selfishness, the substance will 
be hell. It is a hard word, and a harder fact. 
Take all the words in the dictionary that mean 
something bad, and write opposite them in 
great black letters this one word HELL. It 
means the terrible results of sin — its guilt, 
pollution, penalty, and power; sin working in 



Shadow and Substance. 1 69 

an immortal soul, and burning like a fire, hot- 
ter and more terrible than the fires that con- 
sume the body. Such will be the substance 
for those who spend the shadow to the end, 
forgetful of God. You have heard of the 
jester in an Eastern court whose king gave him 
a staff, with the request that he give it to the 
first man he might meet who was a bigger fool 
than himself. After several years the king 
took sick and was given up to die. He told 
the jester that he must soon leave him. 
" Where are you going?" asked the jester. "I 
am going on a long journey into the future, 
and I have made no preparation for it." " Did 
you know that you were going to make such a 
journey?" "Yes." "How long have you 
known it?" "All my life." "And, knowing 
it all your life, you have made no preparation 
for it?" "None at all." "Then you are the 
man," said the fool, " to whom at your own 
request I ought to give this staff." Whether 
the story be true or not, it brings home to us 
the folly of making no preparation in the shadow 
for the substance we are so rapidly approaching. 



I 70 Milk and Meat. 

In the last Place, our Days on the Earth 
are as A Shadow in that there is None 
Abiding. 

Shadows shift, and change, and disappear. 
One great shadow may absorb another. The 
shadow of the trees may be absorbed by 
the denser shadow of the clouds. And so 
death comes to the unbeliever like a greater 
shadow absorbing the shadow of his days. 
Death is simply passing from one shadow into 
another denser and darker. Another way of 
banishing shadows is to let in bright light 
with equal intensity from every direction. Such 
is the Christian's experience as he passes from 
the shadows of earth into the light of heaven. 
There are no shadows there, because the light 
on all subjects is perfect. Mental light, moral 
light, spiritual light, light of knowledge as to 
God's dealing with us and God's laws in 
nature, will be so bright that the shadows of 
ignorance, through which we walk here, will 
flee away before it. Death is, therefore, to 
the Christian not a skeleton with drawn 
scythe, but a radiant messenger of light. To 
the unbeliever it is indeed a monster of hid- 



Shadow and Substance. I 7 1 

eous mien, whose mission is to lead him into 
the " blackness of darkness forever." Well 
may he shrink from its clammy touch ! 

An unknown poet has graphically sketched 
the feeling with which different persons come 
to the end of their life shadows : 



There is a stream whose narrow tide 
The known and unknown worlds divide, 

Where all must go; 
Its waveless waters, dark and deep, 
'Mid sullen silence downward sweep 

With moanless flow. 

I saw there at the dreary flood 
A smiling infant prattling stood, 

Whose time was come : 
Untaught of ill, it neared the tide, 
Sank as to cradled rest, and died 

Like going home. 

Followed with languid eyes anon 
A youth diseased and pale and wan, 

And there alone : 
He gazed upon the leaden stream 
And feared to plunge : I heard a scream 

And he was gone. 

And then a form in manhood strength 
Came bustling on till there at length 
He saw life's bound : 



Milk and Meat. 

He shrank, and raised the bitter prayer : 
Too late — his shriek of wild despair 
The waters drowned. 

Next stood upon the surgeless shore 
A being bowed with many a score 

Of toilsome years : 
Earth-bound and sad he left the bank, 
Back turned his dimming eyes, and sank 

So full of fears. 

How bitter must thy waters be, 

death ! how sad a thing to me 

It is to die ! 

1 mused — when to that stream again 
Another child of mortal man 

With smiles drew nigh : 

" 'Tis the last pang," he calmly said ; 
' ' To me, O death, thou hast no dread : 

Saviour, I come ; 
Spread but Thine arms on yonder sh >re- 
I see. Ye waters, bear me o'er : 

There is my home." 



XVI. 
DISCIPLESHIP. 

" Then said Jesus to those Jews who believed on Him, If ye 
continue in My word, ye are My disciples indeed : 

" And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make 
you free." — John 8 :3r, 32. 

As soldiers, we fight " the good fight of 
faith ;" as sheep, we follow the Shepherd ; as 
stewards, we guard and use the treasures He 
has given us ; as disciples, we sit at His feet 
and learn. 

The heart-thought of the text is discipleship, 
and around this centre cluster its basis, its test, 
its fruit, and its glory. 

I. The Basis of Discipleship. 

It is faith in Christ. "Jesus said to those 
Jews who believed on Him." It is not faith in 

173 



i 74 Milk and Meat. 

a creed, though every word of it may be true. 
It is not faith in a church, though it be the 
church founded by Christ Himself. It is not 
faith in an ordinance, though established by 
the Lord. It is not faith even in a book, 
though every word of it be inspired. It is 
faith in a Person — the Lord Jesus Christ. Be- 
lieving not about Him, but in Him, resting 
your hope of salvation completely on Him. 

II. The Test of Discipleship. 

It is twofold, made up of time and truth. 
"If ye continue, ye are My disciples indeed/' 
Time is the test that tries the soil and the 
seed. The seed that fell upon stony places 
sprang up suddenly, but in a little while with- 
ered. It could not stand the test of time. 
Some of these Jews, under a temporary im- 
pulse, expressed their faith in Christ. To- 
morrow, among unsympathetic and persecuting 
Pharisees, they may deny Him. Continuance is 
the test. Only the man who continues has 
really begun. 

And it is continuance in the word of Christ : 
" If ye continue in My word, ye are My dis- 



Discipleship. 1 75 

ciples indeed." What is meant by " My 
word?" Only the utterances of Jesus, or the 
whole Word to which He subscribed? In His 
prayer for the disciples He said : u Sanctify 
them through Thy truth : Thy word is truth." 
" Thus saith the Lord " rings through the 
prophets, and Christ put His name to the writ- 
ings of Moses, the Psalms, and <the prophets. 
So that what we call the Bible may be, in a 
very true sense, called the Word of Christ. 
The tendency of the times is not to continue 
in that Word, but rather to criticise it ; not to 
seek to cultivate faith in it, but rather to 
upset faith. 

And the lack of Biblical knowledge which 
some of the critics show is amusing, if not 
alarming. I read of one the other day who 
said he could not accept that story about the 
ark: he was a dealer in lumber, and the ark 
was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high, 
and if it had been filled with food and ani- 
mals, it must have weighed thousands of tons. 
" Now," he said, " you cannot make me believe 
that men could carry such a thing as that 
through the wilderness." His mixture of the 
arks is a fair sample of the mixture of facts 



i 76 Milk and Meat. 

for which some critics of, the Bible are noted. 
They dip into the Word here and there, read 
magazine articles on it, books about it, but 
have never carefully and persistently studied it. 
May we seek to continue in the Word rather 
than to* criticise it ! 

I believe that the Bible can stand every test 
of honest criticism. I like to see the old 
Book tried by all fair methods. It can take 
care of itself ; it needs no defenders. It has 
stood the onslaught of ages, and in times past 
its enemies were stronger than they are now. 
But the test of discipleship is not finding fault 
with the Word, but continuing in it. 

III. The Fruit of Discipleship. 

" Ye shall know the truth." Pilate's ques- 
tion, " What is truth ? " is here answered. If 
ye would know truth, believe in Him who is 
the truth, and continue in His Word. John 
Newton, as he grew old, lost his memory, but 
he used to say, " Two things I can never for- 
get : I am a great sinner, and Jesus Christ is 
a great Saviour." Such knowledge of the 
truth makes a man broad and narrow. The 



Discipleship. 1 7 7 

fact that he loves spiritual truth makes him 
sympathize all the more with moral, scientific, 
and historic truth. The realm of truth is 
one, ruled by the God of truth. The Bible and 
nature belong to the same empire. But truth 
can never sympathize with falsehood any more 
than light can with darkness, disease with 
health, honesty with roguery, virtue with vice. 
There is a breadth of latter times in which 
many see great beauty ; a sympathy with 
everything and a holding to nothing tena- 
ciously. I saw a broad river the other day, 
250 yards wide, running through the mountains 
over stones, down the cataract, eddying in 
quiet pools ; and after a while it narrowed 
down to about 40 feet in width, and there it 
was 100 feet deep, running with the swiftness 
of an arrow. At this narrow place men think 
of building their factories ; there is the place 
of power. And the man who would be 
broader than what he believes to be true loses 
power in proportion to his breadth. He who 
is willing to be as broad as all truth, and not 
a whit broader, will have the power that goes 
with truth blessed by the God of truth, 



i ;S Milk and Meat. 



IV. The Glory of Discipleship. 

" The truth shall make you free." It does 
not help us to free ourselves. It makes us 
free. Some prisoners in Malta during a plague 
were offered their liberty on condition that 
they leave their isolated cells and nurse the 
afflicted. They accepted the condition, and 
thus won their liberty. Christ does better 
than that for us : He not only shows how we 
may be free, but He makes us free. He 
breaks the shackles; He issues the Emanci- 
pation Proclamation, and stands ready with the 
arm of His omnipotence to enforce the de- 
cree that every one who believes in Him shall 
be free. 

Freed from what ? From sin, of course, 
Past sins often hound us; sins never get out 
of date. But Jesus Christ frees us from the 
guilt and penalty of every past sin. 

Three prisoners in a Wisconsin penitentiary 
escaped by digging a tunnel after the fashion 
of the Libby Prison tunnel. They worked on 
it two years, and finally at an opportune time 
made their escape. In the fresh, free air, they 



Discipleship* 1 79 

felt very happy ; but in less than ten days the 
officers of the law had put them behind the 
walls again and stopped up the tunnel. Their 
temporary freedom did not last. But the man 
who has been freed by Jesus Christ shall never 
be brought into condemnation. His guilt has 
been annihilated. He stands now before God 
as if he had never sinned. 

" Oh, for such grace let rocks and hills 
Their lasting silence break, 
And all harmonious human tongues 
The Father's praises speak !" 

Again, the truth frees us from the law. 
Lazarus is liberated from his grave-clothes. 
Love takes the place of law. A home gov- 
erned by rules is apt to be a prison. A school 
where nobody is put on his honor, but every- 
thing must work by rule, is not apt to be well 
governed. Some boys have no honor to be 
put upon, so that they must be treated as con- 
victs ; but when the scholars love the truth and 
the teacher, it is safer to let love and honor 
rule. I read the other day of a man and his 
wife in Iowa, who discovered after they were 



i So Milk and Meat. 

married that they were not happy; so they drew 
up a matrimonial contract, in which the wife 
promised not to scold or quarrel and to per- 
form all her duties, on condition that the hus- 
band would give her for all needs one hundred 
dollars a month. They w r ere soon in court, the 
husband protesting that the wife had not fulfilled 
her condition, and the wife charging that the 
husband had failed to fulfil his. The result 
was a suit for divorce. But you know of 
homes where love is law : the father rules 
by love ; the wife is the queen of love. No 
law is needed, for love is the fulfilling of law. 
Such a home is an anthem of harmony day by 
day. 

We are freed from ceremonial law. Men who 
are the slaves of sin are sometimes bound by 
ceremonial law. Two burglars were heard con- 
versing during Lent. One said to the other : 
" Jack, I know r where there is a safe with one 
hundred thousand dollars in it ; let 's crack it 
to-night !" "I am not the man," said Jack, "to 
crack a safe during Lent. We should practise 
self-denial." After Lent was over he was ready 
for the safe-cracking, and with no qualm of 
conscience. The truth as it is in Jesus frees us 



Disciples hip, 1 8 1 

from law, and yet leads us lovingly to obey 
the law without feeling its restraint. 

We are freed from habit — bad habit, if you 
please : the habit, for instance, of drink and 
tobacco. Now let us be careful. We may 
hurt some tender conscience. There is a dif- 
ference, I think, between tobacco and alcohol, 
though not so much as many suppose, for 
much tobacco is at least one tenth alcohol. 
But when a man becomes the slave of tobacco, 
he is not very different from the slave of 
drink. It may not lead him to abuse his wife 
and children, but he is not a free man. Now, 
if you have ever said : " I cannot quit tobacco/' 
make up your mind to do it or die. Say as 
Mr. Henson of Chicago, when he found that 
he was a slave to the weed, laying his cigar on 
the table, said : " You black rascal, I will not 
serve you any longer." The truth as it is in 
Jesus can free any sort of slave from any sort 
of habit. 

Even from a good habit we sometimes need 
to be freed. Men may perform religious 
duties by routine until they become mere 
machines. They act not from principle. I 
have heard of a dog belonging to a Pres- 



[82 Milk and Meat. 

byterian elder, which went to church every 
Sunday, slept in front of the pulpit during 
the sermon, shook himself during the doxology, 
and walked out with a joyful expression. The 
old Presbyterian elder died, and a Baptist 
deacon bought his farm. The dog remained 
on the farm, went with the Baptist family to 
the village the next Sunday, and on arriving 
at the Presbyterian church he was surprised 
that the family did not turn in as usual, but 
he went in, lay down before the pulpit, slept 
through the sermon, went home after the ser- 
vice, and for five or six years, as long as his 
dogship lived, he kept up the habit of attend- 
ing his own church. He could not be induced 
to change his denominational relation. There 
was no principle involved ; it was simply the 
force of habit. Just as that dog went to 
church by force of habit, we often go through 
family prayers, reading the Bible, and other 
religious duties, in the most mechanical way. 
If we truly believe in Christ, continue in His 
Word, and know the truth, we shall be freed 
from mechanism. The life principle within us 
will work. And that brings me to say, lastly, 
that all this freedom must come from within, 



Disciples hip. 1 8 3 

not from without. Men are to be saved by 
the Gospel rather than by law. The sheriff 
and the penitentiary can never redeem the 
soul. Now I believe in punishing criminals : 
men that break the law ought to be put be- 
hind iron bars — Christian sentiment should de- 
mand it ; but the old warden of the Ohio 
penitentiary was right when he called his 
institution the impenitentiary, for he said he 
rarely ever turned out any penitents. The 
freedom of soul we seek must come through 
an inward knowing of the truth. It must be 
as fruit upon the tree of faith and knowledge. 
One of the master painters has left a strik- 
ing picture. It represents the scene in the 
wilderness when the Israelites were bitten by 
fiery serpents. The serpent of brass is gleam- 
ing on the hill. A group of bitten, horror- 
stricken men and women are tearing the ser- 
pents from their arms and sides. Yonder is 
another group covered with serpents, bowing 
before Moses, and with clasped hands are 
pleading for deliverance; but Moses cannot 
help them, and other serpents strike as soon 
as one is torn away. But the majority of 
the people are looking toward the serpent of 



184 Milk and Meat 

brass, and the serpents are falling off as dead 
from their persons. There is no need of 
tearing them away. The picture illustrates 
two methods that are prevalent : one is to 
save from sin by external means, tearing the 
evil from us ; and the other is by taking into 
our hearts the life which develops and strength- 
ens, and casts out the evil. That brings true 
liberty — the only liberty that will last. " If ye 
continue in My word, ye are My disciples in- 
deed : and ye shall know the truth, and the 
truth shall make you free." 



XVII. 
CONSTRAINING LOVE. 

" The love of Christ constraineth us." — 2 Cor. 5 : 14. 

DOES this mean the love of Christ for us, 
or our love for Christ ? Evidently the love of 
Christ for us, though by implication our love 
for Christ. " We love Him because He first 
loved us." Our love is kindled at the altar 
of Christ's love. Our purpose in this discourse, 
however, is to study the word " constrain. " I 
believe in plenary inspiration, not in a me- 
chanical theory. John wrote as John, Peter 
as Peter, Paul as Paul; the Holy Spirit not 
making them automatons or machines, but 
using their different personalities. When I am 
, convinced that a chapter or verse is not an 
interpolation, but contains the words that were 
written by inspired minds, then to me that 

scripture is verbally inspired. God speaks not 

185 



1 86 Milk and Meat. 

through sentences, paragraphs, or books, but 
through words. One word at least is inspired. 
"Not seeds, as of many," said Paul, "but 
seed." The Spirit was particular to give us the 
singular rather than the plural. Some words 
are like gold mines with a few nuggets on 
the surface — an index to the rich ores w T hich 
lie beneath ; and such is this w r ord " constrain." 
Let us dig into it. 

The first thing we learn is: 

I. Unity and Community. 

It means primarily — binds its together. The 
love of Christ unites us. The love of country 
unites men. When the tocsin of w T ar sounds, 
merchants, mechanics, lawyers, doctors, com- 
mon laborers, rally to the flag, though many 
of them may speak different languages — 
French, German, Italian standing in the ranks 
side by side, moving as one man. They have 
a common purpose, born of a common love. 
The heterogeneous mass has been melted by 
the fires of patriotism, fused into the same 
mould. So the love of Christ binds men to- 
gether, though they be far apart in channels 



Constraining Love. 1 8 7 

of thought, in nationality, language, occupa- 
tion. I defy any one to meditate an hour on 
the love of Christ for him, and then cherish 
in his heart hatred toward his neighbor. 

As the result of this unity, there will be 
community. The early disciples had all things 
in common. It was brought about not by 
statute law, but by love. A conception of the 
love of Christ, as manifested in the sacrifice of 
Himself upon Calvary, had gotten hold of 
them, and His spirit of sacrifice showed itself 
in their yielding what they had for the supply 
of the community. Love begotten by the love 
of Christ abhors a vacuum. It seeks to fill 
the place of want and woe. But could such 
a state of affairs exist forever? If the same 
love reigned, it would be in active operation 
to-day. 

II. Perplexity and Distress. 

Paul said, " I am in a strait betwixt two, 
having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ ; 
which is far better " (Phil. 1 : 23). The word 
translated " in a strait " is this word " con- 
strain/' Two forces were drawing Paul — 



[88 Milk and Meat. 

heaven and earth ; the desire to be at rest, 
and to toil on ; his anxiety to be with Christ, 
and the obligation which he felt to remain and 
help his brethren. 

So the love of Christ sometimes perplexes 
us ; puts us " in a strait betwixt tw r o." The 
love of parents may draw in one direction, 
while the love of Christ draws in another, and 
the result is great perplexity as to our duty. 
"When I would do good, evil is present with 
me." My love for Christ makes me want to 
do good, while my fleshly nature inclines me 
to evil. Blessed perplexity this ! Better to be 
perplexed by these two contending forces than 
that the evil should have it all its own way 
and leave us in the rest of a deadened con- 
science. And to perplexity there is often 
added distress. " I have a baptism to be bap- 
tized with, and how am I straitened until it 
be accomplished ! " said Jesus. " Straitened " 
here is this word "constrained.'' Before Christ 
was Gethsemane and Calvary, an immersion 
of suffering. His love for us drew Him toward 
it, while the shrinking of the flesh, as seen 
in the garden, drew Him from it. His love 
for us constrained Him, pressed Him toward 



Constraining Love. 1 89 

Calvary, until the suffering was over. So the 
love of Christ constrains us to accept what- 
ever Calvary may be put in our way, whatever 
suffering for the good of others God may call 
upon us to endure. 

III. Restraint. 

" For the days shall come upon thee, that 
thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, 
and compass thee round, and keep thee in on 
every side" (Luke 19:43). 

The word translated "keep in" is this word 
"constrain." The army of Titus had besieged 
Jerusalem, encompassing it, and holding the 
inhabitants within the walls. They could not 
sally forth ; they were prisoners. And the love 
of Christ bears something of the relation to 
us that this besieging army of Titus bore 
toward the Jews. It keeps us from going 
out into doubtful indulgences, unrestrained 
passions — ways that God would not approve. 
We are under a blessed restraint ; not of 
power, but of love. The mother is restrained 
from injuring her child, but it is a restraint 
which is joy, and the liberty of hurting her 



1 90 Milk and Meat. 

child would be painful to her. We are told 
in Luke 22:63, "The men that held Jesus 
mocked Him, and smote Him." This word 
''held" is the "constrain" of the text; the 
Roman soldiers held Him as a prisoner. Their 
object was to humiliate Him. The love of 
Christ, however, holds us as prisoners for the 
purpose of elevating, inspiring, and comforting 
us. A delightful condition, indeed, to be a 
prisoner of the love of Jesus Christ ! The 
world is led captive by the Devil at his will ; 
the Christian, by Jesus at His will : one hypno- 
tized of evil ; the other of good. The world is 
led by the sirens' song toward destruction ; the 
Christian is drawn by the angelic music of 
Christ's love toward heaven. 

And this encompassing, protecting power 
shuts out evil. The besieging army of Titus, 
while it kept the Jews within the walls, kept 
other enemies from approaching. The Roman 
soldiers kept others from the person of Christ. 
They would not deliver Him to the mob 
who howled for His blood. The same idea 
we find in Acts 7:57. Those who stoned 
Stephen " cried out with a loud voice, stopped 
their ears, and ran upon him with one ac- 



Constraining Love. 1 9 1 

cord/' The word translated "stopped" is this 
word " constrained." They shut out the cries 
of the people, and made themselves deaf to 
everything that would keep them from accom- 
plishing their purpose. And so the love of 
Christ shuts out the forces that would keep 
us from doing what He commands. 

IV. Pressure. 

Jesus is on His way to the house of Jairus. 
A great multitude crowd around Him and 
throng Him. He said, " Who touched Me?" 
The disciples replied, " The multitude throng 
Thee and press Thee, and sayest Thou, 
Who touched Me?" (Luke 8:45). This word 
" pressed" is the " constrain" of our text. 
How beautiful the thought ! Love throngs 
and presses us like that multitude about our 
Lord. 

There is the pressure of blessing. Political 
blessings crowd us. We have civil liberty. 
We may worship God as our conscience dic- 
tates. Persecution by thumb-screw and rack is 
forever gone. Social blessings press upon us. 
We have close about us many in sympathy 



1 92 Milk and Meat. 

with our hopes and aspirations, and who unite 
with us in work for God. Physical blessings ; 
God gives us health. Literary blessings ; we 
may fill our homes with good books. Gospel 
blessings ; the Bible full of promises, and God's 
providence full of love. Such a pressure of 
blessings the love of Christ causes to throng 
us. 

But with this there is the pressure of obli- 
gation. We are told in Acts 18:5, " Paul was 
pressed in the spirit, and testified to the Jews 
that Jesus was the Christ. " The word translated 
l< pressed in spirit" is our friend " constrain." 
It was the pressure of responsibility. Paul had 
the bread of life, and he felt that he ought to 
give it to others. He believed in Christ, and 
he was pressed to say so. Now this is a bur- 
den which we cannot cast upon others. God, 
even, wall not bear it. There are other burdens 
of sorrow, sin, and struggle that we may cast 
upon Him, and He will sustain us. There are 
burdens which we may share with each other, 
and we are commanded to bear one another's 
burdens; but here "Let every one bear his own 
burden." No man can do my duty for me. 
No one can take my place. No one can obey 



Constraining Love. 1 93 

God by proxy ; and heavier than all other re- 
sponsibilities of life is the responsibility of 
testifying, through character as well as words, 
for Christ. 

During a naval battle, an English vessel had 
been swept by shot and shell. More than one 
half of the marines were dead or dying ; their 
bodies covered the deck. Captain Haldane 
ordered the reserves to come up and take the 
places of the slain, and when they reached the 
deck and saw the bodies and blood of their 
slain companions, they were seized with a 
panic. The captain drew his sword, and rush- 
ing before them said, " Cowards that you are — 

I wish you were in h ! " An old Scotch 

marine went quietly up to the captain, and 
saluting him, said, " I believe that God answers 
prayer, and if your prayer had been answered, 
where would we be?" After the battle the 
captain thought of the faithfulness of this old 
marine, who had been slain during the conflict. 
It led him to reflection, to prayer, to Christ. 
Captain Haldane became a preacher in the 
city of Edinburgh, and through his influence 
Robert Haldane, whose voice shook Geneva as 
he proclaimed the Gospel, was converted ; all 



194 Milk and Meat. 

traceable back to the faithful testimony which 
the old Scotch marine bore to Christ in that 
critical hour. More weighty than the responsi- 
bility of fighting for his country ; more weighty 
than submission to his superior ; more weighty 
than the terror of the bloody scene before him 
was the responsibility of testifying for Christ. 
The love of Christ constrained to it. 

A physician in Holland, once a Jew, now a 
Christian, became greatly interested in an old 
Jewish friend, wealthy and honored. He was 
so pressed in spirit that he determined to go 
over and have an hour's talk with him one 
evening. When he arrived at the palatial resi- 
dence of his friend, he found a party gather- 
ing ; a number of the guests were there. He 
went in, shook hands with his friend, and 
told him that he had called upon an impor- 
tant mission ; but it seemed inopportune, and 
he would wait until a more convenient season. 
The Jewish friend, his curiosity aroused, in- 
sisted that he should make his mission known. 
" Well, it was that we might talk together 
about the Messiah. I think I have found Him, 
and I want to tell you about Him." " Why," 
replied the wealthy old Jew, " I have been 



Constraining Love. 195 

thinking about that of late myself, and was 
anxious to talk to somebody about it. Come 
in, and before the festivities begin you can 
talk to us all on the subject." And the faith- 
ful witness stood before the company, and tes- 
tified that Jesus was the Christ. The result 
was the conversion of his Jewish friend and 
some of the guests. The love of Christ 
pressed upon him the responsibility of saving 
others. " By all means," said Paul, "save 
some." 

V. Enthusiasm. 

In Luke 4:38 we read, " Simon's wife's 
mother was taken with a great fever." That 
word " taken" is " constrained." The fever 
had possession of her. The same word is used 
in Matthew 4 : 24 : " Taken with divers diseases 
and torments." The love of Christ takes hold 
of me like a fever — like an incurable disease ; 
like a demoniacal possession. Does not that 
imply something of fanaticism ? Can we keep 
a cool head while we have a heart raging with 
such a fever of love? Better a thousand fold 
love at fever heat, love holding us like a de- 



196 Milk and Meat. 

moniacal possession, than the cold iceberg, 
freezing state of dignified inactivity. " The 
people of the Gadarenes," we are told, "were 
taken with great fear." "Taken" is "con- 
strained M again. Christ had cast out a devil 
sending the swine into the water. They were 
trembling in the presence of his power, so 
that they hardly knew what to do. They 
were held captives by their fear, as Simon's 
wife's mother was by fever. So we need to 
be held captives by the love of Christ, and 
keep at the point of warm enthusiasm in his 
service. 



XVIII. 
PURE RELIGION. 

" Pure religion and undented before God and the Father is 
this to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, 
and to keep himself unspotted from the world." — James 1:27. 

The word " religion " is used but five times 
in the Bible. This is the only passage in 
which it is approved and commended. Paul 
says that he lived, " after the strictest sect of 
his religion, a Pharisee. " He speaks in two 
other places of the "Jews' religion, " and in 
the verse just preceding this he describes a 
class of men whose " religion " is vain. 
Through a man's religious instincts he may be 
degraded or elevated. The heathen are more 
debased by their religion than by any other 
force. 

The only kind of religion that is worth 

having is the " pure and undefiled." The 

197 



i 9 S Milk and Meat, 

word " pure " describes its inward quality. It 
is the word used in the beatitude, 44 Blessed 
die the pure in heart," and again in the Script- 
ure, " Ye are clean through the word which I 
have spoken unto you." It is a religion 
washed in the blood of Christ ; our whole re- 
ligious nature purified by taking Christ into it 
and making Him king of it. The word 
" undefiled " refers to the outward quality. It 
means primarily unstained, unvarnished. That 
which is washed white needs not to be white- 
washed. A religion pure inside is apt to be 
undefiled outside. 

This religion, " pure and undefiled," is pre- 
sented to us in two aspects : First, as helpful 
contact with the needy. Second, as guarded 
separation from the world. 

I. Helpful Contact. 

To visit means more than to drop in for a 
call, to talk about the weather. It means 
more than going from house to house as 
pastor and checking off the names which you 
have visited. It is the word used where the 
apostles are commanded to look out seven 



Ptirc Religion. 199 

men of good report. We are not to sit down 
and wait for people to come to us to be 
helped and saved, but we must look them out. 
And it carries with it the idea of ministry : 
" The dayspring from on high hath visited 
us." The " dayspring " there certainly refers 
to Christ, so that just as Christ visited the 
world and ministered to it, so we are to 
visit the orphans and widows in their afflic- 
tions. The word " orphans " is the same that 
Jesus used when He said, " I will not leave 
you comfortless " (orphans). Imagine, if you 
can, the condition of the disciples if Jesus had 
left them without sending the Holy Spirit as 
guide, protector, helper in their bewilderment, 
their helplessness, their need ! We are, there- 
fore, commanded to keep ourselves in helpful 
contact with everybody who answers to the 
class of these disciples in that condition. 

The word " orphan," without father or 
mother, represents an orphaned world. There 
are needs of the soul as deep as the needs of 
the body, and people may have plenty of 
wealth while they are orphaned from God. 
" In their affliction " shows the condition of 
these needy ones. It is not my duty to seek 



200 Milk and Meat. 

out the fatherless who are wealthy enough not 
to need my help, and the widows who are not 
widows indeed, and independent of others' 
assistance. I would thus keep the letter 
of the law, while I violated its spirit. The 
word "affliction" means primarily pressure. 
" Pressed above strength and beyond measure," 
said Paul — the same word. Wherever a man, 
woman or child, under the pressures of life, 
crushed beneath its burdens, can be found, 
" pure religion and undefiled " will lead me to 
put myself in helpful contact with them. 
Simply sending a check does not suffice, nor 
standing above, and touching with kid gloves 
in a patronizing way, for " kid gloves are non- 
conductors." As Jesus put Himself, a man 
among men, comforting, strengthening, feeding, 
helping, so "pure religion" w r ould lead us to 
be among our fellows as a real helper to them 
under the burdens of life. 

A little boy finding an old newspaper seller 
on a corner of a street in Chicago, so hoarse 
that he could not cry his papers, volunteered 
with his strong young voice to sell the old 
man's papers for him. That was the spirit 
which helps the helpless, and to that boy the 



Pure Religion. 20 1 

old man was as the orphan and the widow. 
A little girl heard her mother speak of Christ 
as very poor, not having where to lay His 
head. " If I had been there, mamma, I would 
have given Him my pillow," said the child. 
Such is the spirit which " pure religion and 
undefiled " makes ; and in helping the needy, 
especially of the household of faith, we help 
Christ. They are His representatives upon 
earth, and in helping them we help Him. The 
desire thus to help is certain to be gratified. 
Adoniram Judson prayed during his lifetime 
that he might be a missionary to the Jews in 
some way, and, while he was in his last sick- 
ness, his wife read from the Watchman of 
a Jew in Constantinople, who, having accepted 
Christ himself, had been translating the " Life 
of Judson " for his own people, and the effect 
of that little book among them had been to 
induce them to send for a missionary to lead 
them into the light. The news so agitated 
Judson that he could not control his feelings. 
" Wife," he said, " who would have thought 
that God, instead of answering my prayers 
by using me in person as a missionary, should 
use my life ? " His desire to put himself in 



202 Milk and Meat. 

contact with this needy people God answered 
by carrying him thus through the book to 
them. 

That good Christian woman in New York who 
was not satisfied with simply paying the salary 
of a missionary among the poor, but went with 
her and came in contact with the needy, is a 
living illustration of this truth. The blessing 
that she received by contact with suffering 
was to her as great as the ministry she car- 
ried to others. This helpful contact with the 
needy reacts in blessing upon ourselves. 



II. A Guarded Separation. 

The word " keep " has in it the idea of 
guarding. It is the word used where we are 
told that the soldiers guarded Jesus : " They sat 
down and watched Him there/' Protection is 
the idea. Now if we have fulfilled the first 
condition of the text, we need not be careful 
about the second. The man who is all the 
time in helpful contact with the needy, striving 
to do good, seeking to save souls, is sure to 



Pure Religion. 203 

keep himself " unspotted from the world." 
This activity is his safety. In a very sweet 
sense, " the Lord is our keeper/' We commit 
ourselves to Him, feeling assured that " He will 
keep that which we have committed unto Him 
against that day." But there is another sense 
in which we are to keep ourselves : " Keep 
thyself pure." " Whosoever is born of God 
keepeth himself." Faith is not presumption. 
The Lord Jesus would not cast Himself down 
from the pinnacle of the temple in order that 
the Father might simply display His power in 
keeping Him from harm. So we need the 
cautious spirit. 

The word " unspotted " is very suggestive ; 
it means not bespattered. Keep thyself in such 
relation to the world as not to be spattered by 
it. We can thus be in the world and not of 
it, and so deport ourselves toward it that the 
purity of our religion shall not be spattered 
by its pollution. I have known men who were 
good Christians, pure in heart, but in business 
and social relations had become spattered. 
They went into business determined to be 
honest ; but the atmosphere in which they 



204 Milk and A feat. 

moved, the maxims oi men with whom they 
came in contact, so influenced them that their 
very honesty was spattered by the dishonesty 
thers. Oh, how many good men have had 
their characters spattered by doubtful actions, 
by some mistake they have made, by not 
being thoroughly and at all times true to their 
convictions ! 

I was hurrying across Fulton Street the 
other day, on my way to an appointment in 
the country. It was just after a rain. and. as I 
started across, a wagon came lumbering by. 
and spattered me with mud from head to 
foot. Imagine my feelings! Dare I go out to 
Orange to make an address, as was my pur- 
pose, before a thousand people, thus spattered 
all over with mud ? Those who saw me in that 
plight might have thought that I was cleanly 
enough in my habits, but certainly I was spat- 
tered, and they would think more of the spat- 
tering, doubtless, than of what I was saying. I 
was therefore compelled to take the time, 
hurried as I was. to remove the spattered mud 
from my clothing. And so. Christian brother, 
good as you may be in your heart, pure as 
your religion is. if you put yourself in certain 



Pure Religion. 205 

relations, the muddy wheels of the world will 
spatter you all over. 

This kind of religion, pure and undefiled 
and unspattered by the world, stands the test 
of God's inspection. " Pure religion and unde- 
filed before God and the Father." I used to 
urge men to be careful as to their walk before 
men. My sermons on that subject I have laid 
aside. Be careful as to how you walk before 
God, and then you may be careless about your 
walk before the world. If we walk as we 
should before God, we are certain to walk 
right before the world. After all, God's 
opinion is what we need here and hereafter, 
and His " Well done " is a foretaste of heaven 
upon earth. I should like to be, and have you 
all to be, just what James Russell Lowell said 
Clinton B. Fisk, the Prohibition candidate for 
President, was : 

" He stood upon the world's broad threshold ; wide 

The din of battle and of slaughter rose ; 
He saw God standing upon the weaker side 

That sank in seeming loss before its foes. 
Many there were who made great haste and sold 

Unto the common enemy their swords ; 
He scorned their gifts of fame and power and gold, 

And underneath their soft and flowery words 



Milk and Meat. 

Heard the cole serpent hiss ; therefore he went 
And humbly joined to the weaker par: ; 

Fanatic named, and fool, ye: well cor.::: 

S< he could be the nearer to God's heart, 
And feel its - rises sending blood 

Through all the widespread veins of endless good." 



XIX. 
A GROWING FAITH. 

4 'And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken 
unto him." — John 4 : 50. 

Few things are more interesting than the 
growth of a child, body and mind, from in- 
fancy to manhood ; but more interesting still 
is the growth of the new child, the result of 
the second birth — growth from spiritual infancy 
to spiritual manhood. And in the text and 
context we have a growth like this. Weak 
faith has become strong faith. We shall trace 
this growth, and learn, if we can, the secret 
by which weak faith may become strong. Let 
us examine — 

I. The Signs of a Weak Faith ; 
II, Th^ Signs of a Strong Faith. 



20 



208 Milk and Meat. 

I. The Signs of a Weak Faith. 

They are four : 

i. Demanding Visible Proof. — " Except ye see 
signs and wonders," said Jesus, "ye will not 
believe. " We desire to see. " Seeing is believ- 
ing/' says the old proverb ; and yet we may 
be deceived through sight more readily than 
through almost any other sense. Faith based 
upon sight is very weak. " The devils believe 
and tremble/' They see evidences of God's 
power which they cannot deny, and they trem- 
ble before it. It is really unbelief which de- 
mands visible proof. It was the unbelief of 
Thomas which made him say, " I will not be- 
lieve till I see." And Jesus rebuked him 
when He said, ".Blessed are they that have 
not seen and yet have believed." Said the 
rich man in Hades : " Send Lazarus that he 
may tell my five brethren not to come to this 
place of torment ; if one rise from the dead 
they will believe." "No," said Abraham; "if 
they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither 
will they be persuaded though one rose from 
the dead." And if I, through the power of 
God, could raise from the dead every corpse 
in Greenwood Cemetery, and march the living 



A Growing Faith. 209 

men and women through the streets, Brooklyn 
would not believe. Men who will not hear 
God as He speaks through the Bible will not 
hear Him when He speaks through miracles. 

2. Another Sign of Weak Faith is that it 
must be driven to God by Overwhelming Need. 
— This nobleman's son was at the point of 
death. Every physician had doubtless been 
tried, and the most skilful had given up the 
case. In this time of great distress the father 
thinks of Jesus, and starts for Him. It is like a 
man on a vessel in a storm at sea, when he feels 
the timbers cracking beneath him, and imagines 
the depth to which he may soon sink, calling 
out, " Lord, have mercy upon me ! " It is like 
the soldier's cry, so often heard in battle, 
when he feels the bullet strike him : " Lord, 
have mercy ! " It is like repentance on a 
death -bed — the sailor throwing all the goods 
overboard in a tempest, and then seeking to 
gather them up in the calm that follows. 

Such faith is better than no faith, but it is 
not so good as the faith that draws us to 
God by gratitude and love. It is better to be 
driven than not to come at all ; it is still 
better to be drawn. Doubtless this nobleman 



2 io Milk and Meat. 

had heard of Christ many times; but he did 
not go to Him. He may have had opportu- 
nities of inviting Him to his house, but he 
did not improve them. Not until the great 
sorrow comes, which he hopes Jesus may re- 
lieve, does he come to Him at all. Zaccheus, 
on the other hand, invited the Lord to dine 
with him when there was no sorrow to be re- 
lieved. His faith was, therefore, better than 
that of the nobleman. 

Matthew invited the Lord to a feast at his 
house. He wished Him to share his joys. And 
such faith strikes me as of a higher order than 
that which drives us by sheer force of distress 
to seek relief from Christ. 

3. A Third Sign of Weak Faith is that, while 
it prays, it dictates to God. — This father be- 
sought Jesus that He would come down and 
heal his son. He does not make known his 
wants and leave to Christ the manner in 
which they shall be supplied. He wants Christ 
to come to his house. I think I perceive the 
tone of patronage in this invitation. A noble- 
man rarely ever forgets that he is a nobleman, 
and he says to himself, " Only the rabble have 
honored Jesus. I will now invite Him to my 



A Grow '/no- Faith. 2 1 1 



"cb 



mansion, and be the first among the nobility 
to show Him respect, if He will come and 
heal my son " — a spirit just the opposite of the 
centurion's, who said, " I am not worthy that 
Thou shouldst come beneath my roof : but speak 
the word, and my servant shall be healed." 
Here humility dictates to Christ ; but He ac- 
cepts the dictation neither of patronizing pride 
nor of great humility. He goes uninvited to 
the centurion's house, and heals his servant. 
He refuses to go, though invited, to the noble- 
man's house, while He heals his son with a 
word. Perfect faith does not dictate to God, 
but much of our praying consists in this hum- 
ble or patronizing dictation. We try to con- 
vince God that He is wrong in His way of 
doing, and we are right. Though we are 
greatly shocked by the blasphemy recently ut- 
tered : " If I had been present at the creation, 
I could have given God some advice ; or, if He 
would consult me as to how to govern the 
world, I could help Him in it," — yet we some- 
times show a spirit distressingly similar. 

Some tenants were ejected from a large 
building in New York several weeks ago. 
They tried to get back, for it was cold out 



2 i 2 Milk and Meat. 

o\\ the streets ; but the police refused to let 
them enter. The reason of their refusal was 
that the building was about to tumble down, 
and they knew that for the good of the ten- 
ants it was better that they should suffer the 
cold than be exposed to the danger from the 
falling walls. And yet these tenants persisted 
in trying to escape the cold by putting them- 
selves in danger. They thought they knew 
better than the police. The result showed 
that the police were the wiser. And the result 
will always show that God's dealings with us, 
though they may seem to be severe, are wise 
and good. 

John Wesley had two preachers under his 
direction, named Bradburn and Duncan. Brad- 
burn was a very eloquent man ; Duncan was 
a rather poor preacher. When Bradburn 
preached, Duncan tried to be present ; but 
when Duncan preached, Bradburn was usually 
absent, and it distressed Duncan. Finally he 
asked his Brother Bradburn why it was he did 
not come to hear him preach. " To tell the 
truth/' replied Bradburn, " I cannot hear you 
without being greatly tempted." " And what, 
pray," said Duncan, " is the nature of the 



A Growing Faith. 213 

temptation?" "I am always tempted to 
think," said Bradburn, " that I can preach 
better than you, and it ministers to my pride." 
Such is the feeling of Brother Weakfaith 
toward God. He has the impression that he 
could do better than the Lord, if he had the 
whole thing in hand ; and it is a temptation 
which he needs to resist. 

4. The Fourth Sign of a Weak Faith is its 
Impatience. — This father evidently became 
impatient : " Sir, come down ere my child 
die." 

There is something almost of petulance in 
this request. It shows that he thinks it is no 
time now to argue. What he wants is haste, 
and he cannot brook delay. Our impatience 
with God is a sign of very weak faith. 

It is comforting to know that Jesus honors 
even faith like this. Though impatient and 
dictatorial, driven by need and seeking visible 
evidence, He answers the prayer. He pities 
our weakness. " The bruised reed He will not 
break ; the smoking flax He will not quench." 
The fire of trust does not blaze up ; He sees 
more of the smoke of impatience and unbelief 
than of faith, but He will not allow the sparks 



2 14 Milk and Meat. 

beneath the flax to be trampled out. The 
reed of our faith is very weak, but He will not 
allow the bird that would break it to light 
upon it. Indeed, He fans the sparks into a 
flame ; He puts new life into the reed that will 
heal the bruises and make it strong. 

A New Jersey farmer one morning heard a 
little wren pouring out its heart in song upon 
the early air. Now and then it would stop as 
if interrupted, and by and by continue its song 
again. Drawing near he noticed that the 
mother was teaching her young to sing. She 
would first sing through the whole song, and 
then listen to the little one sing, until it broke 
down, and then she would take up the song 
and carry it through. This was repeated until 
the little birds could sing the mother's song 
accurately. And when we break down in our 
song of faith, God delights to take up the 
strain and help us through. His strength is 
made perfect in our weakness ; all that we 
lack He supplies. 

You may have heard John B. Gough tell, in 
one of his thrilling lectures, of a scene in his 
own experience. Sitting in a church one 
morning he heard a hoarse, discordant voic^ 



A Growing Faith. 2 1 5 

behind him, and he felt sorry that he was near 
such a disagreeable creature. The preacher 
gave out the hymn, " Just as I am, without one 
plea," and the discordant voice, without any 
melody or much tune, followed the words. 
While the interlude was being played before 
the second verse, Mr. Gough felt a hand touch 
his arm, and a voice saying : " Please, sir, what 
is the next verse ? Tell me the first line : I 
think I might remember it." " Just as I am, 
poor, wretched, blind," said Gough, and, as 
he looked into the stranger's face, saw that 
he was blind. And when he heard him with 
his grating voice trying to sing the next 
lines,— 

" Sight, riches, healing of the mind, 
Yea, all I need in Thee to find, 
O Lamb of God ! I come," — 

Gough said he felt that he would like to 
lend him what voice he had, and help him to 
sing if he could. And so God feels toward us 
when we try to serve or to believe. He would 
help us in our failures, and, unlike Gough, He 
is able to do it. He can give us just what we 
need. Christ honored the weak faith of this 



2l6 Milk and Meat. 

father in order that his weak faith might be- 
come strong. 
This leads us to 

II. The Signs of a Strong Faith. 

They, too, are four : 

I. Faith in the Word of God. — The text tells 
us that "the man believed the word that 
Jesus had spoken.'' He no longer desired a 
sign ; he could now rely upon the simple word. 
There was something in the tone of the voice, 
in the magnetic presence, as well as in what 
Jesus said, which went to his heart and gave 
him faith. And so there is something in this 
Word of God — a living something which 
goes with it and helps us to believe. I have 
no superstitious feeling toward the Bible. I 
do not regard its binding, its paper, its ink, 
its material make-up, as especially sacred. 
Webster's Dictionary is as good a book to 
dream by and tell fortunes by as the Bible. It 
is no fetich. The truth in it is the sacred 
thing. What it means is hallowed ground. 
We may treat the Bible as the patient treated 
the prescription of the doctor, who told him 



A Growing FaitJi. 2 1 7 

to put it in a little water, and take it accord- 
ing to directions ; and when the doctor re- 
turned the next day, he found the patient 
worse. " Have you taken my prescription?" 
he asked. " Yes, just as you told me. Here 
it is," and he handed him a glass of water in 
which the paper had been dissolved ; and he 
had taken several spoonfuls of paper-pulp for 
medicine. Instead of doing what the prescrip- 
tion told him, he simply took the prescription 
itself. In that sense "the letter killeth." 

The truth of God, ever living, is sacred. I 
like the spirit of the man who refused to let 
any book in his house lie upon the Bible. He 
regarded it as above all books, and hence none 
of his children could lay their books upon it. 
A wise reverence for the book is not out of 
place. But what I insist upon is that what 
the book means is more than the book itself. 

The words of God are very precious, and we 
learn to revel in the truth itself apart from 
any benefit that we receive from it. A house- 
decorator in Buffalo, N. Y., was ordered to 
paper every room but one, and he was curious 
to know why that room was left blank. On 
entering, however, he saw a strange scene. On 



2 1 8 Milk and Meat. 

the walls were pasted hundreds of letters, and 
the young lady, who was kept within doors 
much of her time, said that she had thus 
papered the walls of her room because every 
letter was precious to her heart. There were 
letters from mother, now in heaven ; from 
friends in the skies ; letters which brought up 
pleasant associations of childhood and school- 
days. Every one of them had to her a mean- 
ing ; she could sit in her room and revel in 
these associations. And so we may have our 
rooms of memory filled with Scripture truths. 
Every one of them is suggestive of something 
in the past, the remembrance of which gives 
us delight. This one tells of victory won ; that 
one of a sorrow borne ; another of a perplexity 
in which we were guided ; another still of some 
great calamity which might have crushed us 
but for the promise that sustained. No man 
can prize the Word of God too highly and 
depend upon it too implicitly. 

2. Another Sign of Strong Faith is Rest ful- 
ness. — This father came from home in great 
haste, and he was impatient at the delay of 
Jesus, but after Jesus had said " Thy son 
liveth," we find him in no hurry. Not until 



A Growing Faith. 2 1 9 

next day does he start for home. He believes 
that his son is cured, and there is no need of 
hurry. Having watched, perhaps, at the bed- 
side of his sick boy for many nights, he de- 
cides to stay in Capernaum and have a good 
night's rest. He sleeps until late in the morn- 
ing, when he quietly takes his breakfast, and 
then starts leisurely toward home. The wife 
is uneasy about him : " Why does husband 
stay away so long? He, of course, does not 
know that our child is well;" and calling the 
servant she says, " Go up to Cana, and tell 
husband the joyful news ;" and as they come 
he meets them, and hears from them without 
surprise the account of the healing. It is 
hardly news to him. 

" He that believeth maketh not haste." He 
rests upon God with a quiet heart. He is 
willing to let God take His time, confident that 
God's time is better than his. He has the 
promise, which to the eye of faith is equal to 
the fulfillment. He has already entered upon 
the enjoyment of what is promised. The 
Holy of Holies is his, described by the words: 
"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose 
mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in 



2 20 Milk and Meat. 

Thee." In this age oi hurry, we need such a 
rest of faith. 

3. A Third Sign of Strang Faith is its Readi- 
ness to receive Confirmation. — As the father 
- homeward, he hears the echo of the 
words which Jesus spoke. The servants use 
the very language of Jesus. Jesus had said : 
"Thy son liveth." The servants say: ,k Thy 
son liveth." You have stood, perhaps, in the 
Pisa Baptistry, or on Echo Lake in New 
York, and heard your words brought back 
just as you spoke them. But an echo like 
this which the nobleman heard is sweeter 
than all the echoes in nature. The man who 
believes God's Word will hear, sooner or later, 
the echo of answer. He will hear it in fulfill- 
ment of some kind. " Faithful is He who has 
promised." And you will notice how ready 
the nobleman was to receive the confirmation 
of his faith. He compared the time when 
Christ spoke the word with the time when his 
son was healed, and he saw it was the same 
hour. Now unbelief would have suggested : 
"This is a remarkable coincidence, to be sure; 
but there is no necessary connection between 
the words of Jesus and the healing. He might 



A Growing Faith. 221 

have gotten well anyhow." And so, when we 
have asked and received, the temptation too 
often is to take honor from God by giving 
credit to secondary causes. The tempter sug- 
gests : " You have what you wanted, but it 
might have come even without praying for it." 
Such is the attitude of unbelief. Faith stands 
ready to be confirmed by the testimony of others, 
and by a direct answer to a definite petition. 

4. The Last Sign of Strong Faith we will men- 
tion is its Willingness to receive Spiritual Bless- 
ing. — We are told that the nobleman " himself 
believed, and all his house/' The first thing 
he did, doubtless, when he reached home, was 
to search out the old Scriptures and read of 
the Messiah. And turning to his boy with eyes 
now bright with intelligence and cheeks flushed 
with health, he says, u You have been saved 
from death by the Great Physician. Are you 
willing now to trust Him as your Saviour 
from sin ? " And looking into the face of his 
wife, he says, " Will you also trust Him ? " 
And then turning to the other children and 
the servants, he gets a promise from all that 
they will trust the Saviour. And kneeling 
now with the open scroll of the Scriptures before 



2:2 Milk and Meat. 

him, he returns thanks to God for the bless- 
ing of the child restored — better still, of a 
isehold redeemed. He has received from 
Jesus more than he asked. He came for the 
healing of his son ; he has received the heal- 
ing of his whole family. He came for tem- 
poral blessing; he has received spiritual bless- 
ing. He came anxious that the home on 
earth might be happy : he has received a 
home in heaven made happier. Such is God's 
way of dealing. He knows how to give above 
all we can ask or think. Great faith prizes 
spiritual above temporal blessings, and has the 
secret by which the temporal is transmuted 
into the eternal. 

I now appeal to every one here who has 
been blessed of God in body, in family, in 
any respect. Will you not, like this nobleman 
and his family, permit these temporal blessings 
to bring to you spiritual blessings ? Will you 
not in gratitude give your hearts to Christ? 
The king asked John Fletcher of Madeley, 
''What do you desire that I may give you?" 
" I want," replied Fletcher. " only more grace." 
The faith that seeks the spiritual is above the 
faith that seeks only the temporal. 



XX. 

DEW AND LION. 

''And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of 
many people as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon 
the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the 
sons of men. And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the 
Gentiles in the midst of many people, as a lion among the 
beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of 
sheep : who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and 
teareth in pieces, and none can deliver. " — Micah 5 : 7, 8. 

The twofold mission of Christianity is sym- 
bolized in these words by the dew and the 
lion. The dew builds up ; the lion tears down 
and destroys. 

I. The Dew. 

1. The Work of the Dew is Silent. — It uses 

no hammer. The great temple of nature, 

like Solomon's temple, is built without noise. 

223 



2 24 Milk and Meal. 

The dew works in the dark and in the light, 
through the vital force of nature. It disinte- 
grates dead stone. Just what the vital force 
in nature is to the vegetable world, the Holy 
Spirit is to the spiritual world. He uses silent 
Christian influence as the vital force uses the 
dew. 

This silent influence is made up of three 
elements : (a) Character. Not what men say or 
do or write, but what they are. What a man 
is is tenfold stronger than what he may say 
or do. Benjamin Franklin, with a little touch 
of egotism, to be sure, but with truth, said 
that he never carried a point by argument, 
but always by the force of his character. 
He was a very poor speaker; but w r hat he 
said had Benjamin Franklin behind it, and he 
carried his measures. Justin Martyr said he 
was converted to Christianity by noticing the 
meekness of Christians under persecution. 
Seneca said of Socrates that his followers 
learned more ethics from his manner than 
from his words. Character, that works silently 
as the dew, we need to magnify, and en- 
deavor to make as perfect as possible, that 
this quiet influence may be most potent. 



Deiv and Lion. 225 

(b) But greater than character is Prayer. 
Prayer reaches farther. Character can touch 
what is near; prayer can reach out and 
touch the distant. Elijah could not have 
much influence, through his character, over the 
priests of Baal ; but by prayer he could touch 
God, and out of heaven came the fire that 
had a mighty influence. John Clough you 
never saw, and yet in your family prayers you 
can promote missions among the Teloogoos. 
There is an omnipresence in prayer. You go 
to your telephone and call up the central 
station that is in communication, perhaps, with 
a thousand other stations, and through the 
central station you have a sort of omnipres- 
ence. By prayer you call up the central sta- 
tion, and through that central station of God's 
omnipotence and omniscience you can touch 
the whole world. Character reaches out and 
touches those near us ; prayer reaches out and 
touches all the world in the sweep of its 
power. 

(c) But greater than prayer in some re- 
spects is Communion with God. When Moses 
came down from the mount, his face shone, 
though he knew it not. Bunsen said to his 



226 Milk and Meat. 

wife, ' I see in your face the Eternal." And 
there is something might}' about the man who 
lives with God. not simply praying so that He 
may put into operation the forces that will tell 
for good, but because he loves to pray. He 
dwells in the secret place of the Most High, 
because it is warm and light and refreshing : 
he lives and walks with God. There is some- 
thing more powerful about that man than 
prayer or even character can give. His com- 
munion with God keeps him in contact with 
the great battery of power that sends out 
its forces when he is not conscious of it at 
all. A man like that can never be over- 
come. An old Scotch baron was besieged in 
his castle by some rival barons, who decided 
that they would starve him out. Week 
after week they continued their siege. Two 
or three months passed, when, as they thought 
he was just about ready to starve, the}* saw 
hanging over the wall a string of fresh fish. 
" Well," they said. " if that man has fresh fish 
to live on, we can never starve him out. ,, 
The secret of it was that he had an under- 
ground communication with the sea. and, while 
they were trying to starve him, he was feast- 



Dew and Lion. 227 

ing on the best fish the sea could afford. If 
we will just keep up this secret communica- 
tion with God, getting our supplies from 
heaven, our souls will be fed, and the forces 
of evil encamped around us can never over- 
come us. 

2. The Work of the Dew is Gradual. — It 
is difficult to hurry life. Feed an animal 
too much and you may kill it. The plant 
may be watered to death. The vital force will 
take just so much and no more, and you can- 
not hasten the processes of life. So it is with 
the Christian. You can't make people grow 
by just feeding them. Why, there are some 
Christians who listen to Gospel sermons for ten 
years, and the only effect it has upon them is 
to give them a sort of spiritual dyspepsia. 
They are fed enough, but there is little vital 
force to apply and appropriate it. The king- 
dom of heaven is as a grain of mustard-seed. 
Young converts cannot grow into a spiritual 
Samson in a few days ; one cannot become an 
athlete in a few hours. It takes training, pa- 
tience, endurance, to grow into a full Chris- 
tian. 



228 Milk and Meat. 

3. The Work of the Doze is through a Wide 

Diffusion of Particles, — One great drop of dew 
in the garden is not sufficient. There are 
thousands, perhaps millions of drops, and 
each drop just as intent upon its mission 
as though it were the only drop on the 
premises. Life in nature works not through 
the bulk, but through the atom, the smallest 
possible part. And so it is with the Chris- 
tian's influence upon the world. God does 
not put one great man in a place to do all 
the work. Every member should be a drop of 
dew, intent upon its mission. 

4. The Work of the Dew is Persistent. — 
Silent forces are most persistent ; they don't 
make any noise, but just keep at it all the 
time. And the silent influences sometimes 
go on after the force that put them into 
operation has disappeared. The sun rising 
upon the dew dissipates it, but it does not 
dissipate the beauty it has painted on the 
lily, nor the strength it has given the cedar. 
After you are dead, Christian parent, your 
character, your prayer and communion with 
God, are going to live in your children. John 
Quincy Adams, great as he was, prayed till 



Dew and Lion. 229 

his dying day, " Now I lay me down to 
sleep. " He said he prayed it because he 
learned it at his mother's knee. Daniel 
Webster was not one of the most religious 
men, to be sure, but he had great confidence 
in the piety and religion of his mother. One 
day in Boston, after a great address, flowers 
were showered upon the orator. He looked 
at them and enjoyed their sweet odor, but, 
as he was passing out with a friend, a little 
girl stepped up and handed him two or three 
garden pinks. The great orator took them in 
his hand and wept as he thought of the past. 
" That is the flower my mother loved above 
every other flower in the garden, " and the 
sight of the old familiar pink brought before 
him the sincerity and power of his mother's 
character. The dew disappears, but the life 
forces are at work still. Depend upon it, if 
you are true to God, true to your faith in 
Jesus Christ, after you have passed out of 
sight, the life forces that you have put in 
motion will continue to work. 



250 Milk and Meat. 



II. The Lion. 

But Christians as the dew are only the 
half of Christianity. As well have a boat with 
one oar as Christianity with only silent influ- 
ences, whether they come from character, or 
prayer, or communion with God. " The rem- 
nant shall be as a lion among the Gentiles, as 
a lion amid the beasts of the field. " The dew 
with its silent influence is the foundation, 
but the lion with his mighty strength is just 
as important as the dew. The Christian 
needs to be as bold as the lion. There 
are some things you can never reach with 
the dew. There are some men that you 
have to deal with in the spirit of the lion. 
John the Baptist was dew from the Lord with 
everybody with whom he came in contact ; but 
before Herod, the adulterer, he was a lion. 
Did he say, I will try and be the dew ; I will 
by my influence seek to bring about a refor- 
mation in Herod's character ? Not at all. He 
said, " You are an adulterer, and God will 
hold you accountable for your sins." Nathan 
was as the dew working amid the people ; but 



Dew and Lion. 231 

after David had committed his great sin, did 
Nathan say, I will try by my influence, by my 
prayer, by my gentle character, to turn David 
from his iniquity? Not a bit of it. He went 
into the presence of the king, accused him of 
his sin, and said, " Thou art the man." John 
Knox had great power with men : he was the 
dew touching others ; but John Knox in the 
presence of " Bloody Mary" was the lion. 
Luther was as the dew in contact with the 
people in his every-day character and conver- 
sation, but when he stood in the presence of 
the Pope he was a lion. The Christian Church 
should be lion as well as dew. Jesus was the 
Lamb and the Lion. I believe that Anthony 
Comstock is doing the Lord's work in ridding 
the stores of bad literature, and taking crim- 
inals by the neck and putting them in jail, 
where they can do no harm. Men we may 
love, crimes we may hate ; men we may try 
to reach and save them from their sins, while 
we stand before them as we would stand be- 
fore Satan himself and denounce their sins. 
Now, my friends, if you have made up your 
mind that the liquor traffic is going to be over- 
come by influence, you were never more mis- 



252 Milk and A feat. 

taken in your life. You might just as well 
talk to a Bengal tiger as with the liquor 
power of this country. The man who says, " I 
am praying that this curse may be removed, 
and I will try to influence the liquor seller by 
my Christian character," might just as well 
sing psalms to the Atlantic Ocean. We must 
stand before them with the lion power that is 
represented by the ballot — God's substitute for 
the bayonet. It is your duty before God to 
see that just laws are made and executed. I 
know that the Czar of Russia is going to 
have a hard time of it, if he does not repent. 
" Before God shall be gathered all nations," and 
they shall give an account. I am sorry for 
the Czar of Russia, but we are Czars of the 
United States, and, if we do not mind, we 
shall have as hard a time as the Czar of 
Russia. The Czar makes laws and executes 
them, and that is what we do. If the kings 
of this world will have a hard time before the 
judgment-seat, how will it be with citizens, 
when all nations stand before God to give ac- 
count as nations, if we must answer for sup- 
porting this nefarious traffic by our silence or 
our vote ? 



XXI. 
ANGELS AND HORNETS. 

" Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the 
way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. " 
— Exodus 23 : 20. 

" And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out 
the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee." 
— Exodus 23 : 28. 

Canaan is not a type of heaven. When we 
shall have reached the golden shore, there will 
be no Jerichos to conquer and no Canaanites 
to cast out. Peace will be married to purity, 
and goodness to glory. The calm surface of 
the sea of glass will never be ruffled by a 
storm. The rainbow without cloud around the 
throne indicates that the mists have rolled 
away. It will be all singing and no sighing. 

But Canaan is rather a symbol of the human 
soul, which God enters for the purpose of cast- 
ing out the bad and building up the good. 
Jordan is not a type of death, but rather a 

symbol of complete devotement to God. The 

233 



234 Milk and Meat. 

Christian bears the relation to Jordan that 
Caesar did to the Rubicon and Hernando Cor- 
tez did to the ships which he burnt behind 
him. When Caesar passed the Rubicon on his 
way toward Rome, he forever committed him- 
self to conquest or death. After Cortez had 
destroyed his ships and thus cut himself off 
from the Old World, there was no return. He 
must conquer Mexico or be conquered by it. 
So there is a time in Christian experience 
when, after having been delivered from the 
bondage of sin and wandering awhile in un- 
certainty, there is a consecration to God, a cut- 
ting loose from the Wilderness life, and the 
plunging into the conquest of Canaan. Three 
things are said about this conquest : 

i. There is to be no compromise with the 
enemy. Israel must not intermarry with the 
Canaanites. There is to be no partnership 
with the evil. Every man. woman, and child 
of sin in our souls must be cast out. 

2. This conquest is to be gradual. " Little 
by little I will drive them out before thee." 
Sanctification is sudden, and gradual. The 
moment one is converted, he is set apart to 
the work of God, as were the holy vessels in 



A ngets and Hornets. 235 

the temple. But there is a gradual entering 
upon what God has in mind for us. In His 
view we are sanctified at conversion. In our 
own experience there is a lifetime of growth. 
" Little by little" we make the conquest of our 
souls for Christ. A victory here, another 
there, and defeat yonder, but all the time 
making progress until the whole soul-land is 
subdued. 

3. Two of God's agents to assist in this con- 
quest are angels and hornets. He evidently 
sent a real angel before the Israelites, and the 
Christian to-day is encompassed with angelic 
spirits. They are the servants of God to do 
the bidding of faith. " The angel of the Lord 
encampeth round about them that fear Him." 
There might have been real hornets sent in 
such swarms as to drive the people from their 
homes, and make them take refuge in other 
lands. The mission of the angel was to lead, 
to protect, to rebuke, and to bring the people 
to battle with their enemies ; and whatever leads 
us in the good, protects us from the evil, re- 
bukes us for our sins, is a messenger of God 
sent to help us make the conquest of our- 
selves — a true angel. 






Milk and Meat. 



The mission of the hornet was to make the 
inhabitants willing to get out. The hornet is 
too small and weak to overcome by force : it 

cannot pick up the body and fling it out. By 
its little sting and the fear of it. it makes men 
willing to take themselves out. The mosquito 
drives boarders from the summer hotel, not by 
main force, but by the annoyance which makes 
them willing to go. Three policemen went 
into a station-house in Jersey City some time 
ago, and finding a man sitting by the stove 
the}* asked him what was the matter. " I have 
the small-pox." he replied: and the policemen 
departed without being cast out. That man's 
presence made them willing to leave. And so 
God sends hornets into the lives of Christians 
that sting the sins out of their souls : make 
the evil slough off : make it so disagreeable for 
the bad that it will not remain in company 
with the good. 

It is our purpose now to look for a moment 
at the Canaanites of evil, which need to be 
cast out by means of the angels and hornets 
which God uses for their expulsion. 



Angels and Hornets. 2 3 7 

I. Unbelief. 

Not to believe God is a sin which makes 
Him a liar. The conviction of this sin is a 
hornet, which should drive it away. The con- 
science stings us for unbelief. Sometimes in 
prayer-meeting we speak of not trusting God, 
as if it were a small matter : the very thought 
of it should sting us like a hornet. But the 
angels, which lead faith are the promises. " Be- 
lieve on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt 
be saved," was the angel that led me to Jesus. 

While Christ was in the garden of Gethsem- 
ane, an angel came and ministered unto him. 
While Peter was in jail with his feet in the 
stocks, an angel touched him and whispered, 
"Come with me," and led him out into the 
open air. You have been in Gethsemanes of 
sorrow, and it was the angelic touch of some 
promise that sustained you. You have been 
in prisons of grief and of doubt, and some pre- 
cious promise came like an angel with its 
touch and its whisper, to lead you out to free- 
dom. Thus while the hornet of conviction 
stings us for unbelief, the angel of promise 
leads us out into larger faith. 



238 Milk and Meat, 

II. Lethargy. 

"Why stand ye here all the day idle?" is a 
hornet to sting us into activity. The tree is 
known by its fruits, and if you have only 
leaves, the thought of the Master's coming 
with His curse should rouse you to do some- 
thing. But the reward which lies before us is 
an angel that ought to lead us to do good. 
We are saved by grace, but rewarded accord- 
ing to our works, and the ringing command 
comes, " Work out your own salvation with 
fear and trembling." We may well be impa- 
tient to lay up treasures in heaven. I for 
one would like to die the richest man on 
earth, — not rich in gold and silver and bonds, 
but rich in treasures laid up with God. The 
hope of such reward should lead us to the con- 
secration which never lets a day pass without 
doing something for Christ. While the fear of 
barrenness is the hornet's sting, the hope of 
His " Well done" is the angel's hand. 

III. Pride. 

"The proud He knoweth afar off." " Pride 
goeth before a fall." Nebuchadnezzar, who 



Angels and Hornets* 239 

boasted that he had founded the great Baby- 
lon, was brought down to eat grass like the ox. 
These Scriptures should be hornets to sting 
pride out of your soul. But the beauty and 
blessing of humility is an angel that leads us. 
" Humble yourself under the mighty hand of 
God, and He will exalt you in due time/' Be 
little, like Moses and David, in your own esti- 
mation., and you will be great in the esteem 
of God. Pride weakens, humility strengthens ; 
pride debases, humility exalts ; pride blurs, hu- 
mility beautifies. And yet this peacock in the 
hearts of others sometimes becomes a very 
bird of paradise in our own hearts. We are 
long-sighted as we look at the pride of others, 
but very near-sighted when we look at our 
own. Let the angel of God's promise to the 
humble lead us into a more Christ-like estima- 
tion of ourselves. 

IV. Impatience. 

" Fret not thyself because of evil-doers." 
" Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him." 
Those commands should be hornets to sting im- 
patience out of our lives. Sometimes God sends 



240 Milk and Meat. 

severe providences — the very things that would 
test our patience — in order to rid us of impa- 
tience. Rich, prosperous men are usually the 
most impatient ; they cannot brook delay or 
opposition ; but, after adversity comes and 
they find themselves sitting amid the wreck of 
their fortunes, patience begins to grow. It is 
one of the graces made purer in the furnace. 
The fact that God is not in a hurry, and "he 
that believeth should not make haste/' is an 
angel to lead patience into full possession of 
our souls. "Ye have need of patience, that, 
after ye have done the will of God, ye might 
receive the promise." When we have done 
our part, let patience have her perfect work. 
May the angel of patience lead us ! 

V. COVETOUSNESS. 

The fact that covetousness is classed with 
the worst of sins — idolatry, drunkenness, adul- 
tery; the fact that a covetous man should not 
be a deacon or pastor, nor come to the Lord's 
Supper, should be a hornet to sting this mis- 
erable sin out of our hearts. But the blessed- 
ness of liberality is an angel indeed. "It is 






Angels and Hornets. 241 

more blessed to give than to receive." "The 
liberal soul shall be made fat." It is so much 
better to be led by the angel of the joy of 
giving than driven by the hornet of the fear 
of covetousness. I have read of an old miser 
who stood at the door of a humble cottage, 
and heard a little child crying for bread. He 
went off and bought some loaves, opened the 
door, and flung them in. Then he stood for 
a moment and heard the child thank God for 
sending bread. He went away with the joy 
in his heart that he never felt before, and that 
new joy was to him the beginning of a life of 
liberal giving. The joy of doing good with 
his money was an angel that led him out into 
large conquest over the Canaanites of covet- 
ousness and selfishness. 

We may sum up all the Canaanites in 
One Expression — Love of sin. The fact that 
every sin we commit brings guilt, pollution, 
slavery, with the results in this world and the 
next, should be a hornet to sting it out of our 
souls. It is better for a man not to sin, be- 
cause it is a guilty thing; because it pollutes 
him ; because it enslaves him ; because it sends 
him to hell, — than for him to go on loving 



242 Milk and Meat. 

the vile thing regardless of results. But I 
should rather be led by the angel of purity. 

Just as the things we have mentioned are 
angels or hornets in our lives, so we may be- 
come as angels or hornets unto others. As 
the angel led the Israelites, the good that God 
introduced into Canaan, so we should be ever 
ready to lead, to protect, to help on the good 
forces of earth. Let us ever be on the side of 
right and opposed to wrong — an angel to the 
good, a hornet to the bad. 

The Gospel has its repulsions as well as its 
attractions. The rose is protected by the 
thorn. And there is a great disciplinary power 
in the Gospel. If it is preached faithfully Sun- 
day after Sunday, it will attract those that love 
it ; it will repel those that hate it : and it is 
just as much our duty to repel from us those 
who by their influence would ruin our souls as 
to attract to us those who by their influence 
would bless us. Mrs. Bottome says that, when 
she decided to become a Christian, she went to 
her friends, and told them that they must not 
expect her to associate with them any longer ; 
for she believed that their influence for evil 
over her would be greater than her influence 



Angels and Hornets. 243 

for good over them. She need not have 
troubled herself to do this. If she had simply 
in their presence talked of spiritual things, the 
love of Christ, His word and work, and had 
given them to understand that she was now 
taken up with the service of God rather than 
the world, this very fact w r ould have been a 
hornet to sting them off. If you want to get 
rid of evil companions, you need not order 
them out of your house. Be Christ-like before 
them, and they will either be attracted to your 
Christ-likeness and become Christians, or re- 
pelled by it and leave you in safety. It is 
sweeter, however, to be angels to lead than 
hornets to repel. By a godly life and w T ords 
of kindness, we shall lead others in the truly 
angelic way. Mr. Trumbull, in preaching to 
the prisoners in a penitentiary in Philadelphia, 
told them that he sympathized with them, and 
would like to help them if he could. One poor 
fellow grasped his hand after the sermon, and 
told him that those words of sympathy had 
made him a better man now that he knew 
somebody cared for him, and he would reform 
and become a good citizen. A reporter's kind 
word about a prisoner on trial in New York 



244 Milk and Meat. 

led that prisoner to feel that he ought to be a 
better man. In the home, in the church, in 
the social circle, in our business associations, 
we may be angels of God to lead men on to 
conquest of themselves. 






XXII. 

VOICES FROM CALVARY. 

WHEN men are dying, if their minds are 
clear, they frequently put into their last sayings 
the purpose and inspiration of their lives. 
The last words of our Lord upon the cross are, 
therefore, intensely interesting. They give us 
in a nutshell His whole life-purpose. He w r as 
the Son of Man, and in a very peculiar sense 
we died with Him on the cross. His groans 
were the groans of the race ; His words were 
the cries of humanity to God. A judge in a 
court of New York gave a verdict in a very 
important civil suit, and some one who counted 
the words said that each word in the verdict 
was worth just a million dollars ; and if you 
will count the words uttered by the Lord 
Jesus on the cross, you will find that each one 
of them holds a fortune for every one who will 
receive it. 

245 



246 Milk and Meat. 

Let us stand by the cross and listen to the 
voices that come from it. 

I. We hear, first of all, the Voice of 
Prayer. 

" Father, forgive them ; they know not what 
they do." Christ on the cross is our prayer 
for forgiveness. 

" Five bleeding wounds he bears, 

Received on Calvary ; 
They pour effectual prayers 

And strongly plead for me ; 
Forgive him, oh, forgive, they cry, 
Noi let the ransomed sinner die." 

And here we may learn how to forgive. 
Have you any temptation to harbor malice 
against those who have injured you ? When- 
ever somebody treats you a little worse than 
they treated Jesus, then you can say, "I shall 
never forgive." Jesus looked at the best side 
of even his murderers. " They know not what 
they do," He sought excuse for them. It is 
un-Christ-like to look at the bad side of those 
who have injured us. If you have an enemy 
on earth, look at the best side of him. If you 



Voices from Calvary. 247 

have been slandered, try to find some reason 
for it ; persecuted, try to give some excuse for 
it ; and it will not be long before you will be 
praying " for those who despitefully use you." 

II. We hear, again, the Voice of Proimise. 

" To-day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise." 
It is only through Christ on the cross that any- 
body can enter Paradise. Faith in His merit 
brings peace, comfort, joy. To reject the 
crucified Christ is to shut yourself out of Para- 
dise here and hereafter. Christ as a teacher 
unlocks the treasures of wisdom ; Christ as a 
man unlocks the treasures of perfection ; Christ 
on the cross unlocks the treasures of grace and 
glory. It is only the pierced hands that open 
heaven to sinners. One Sunday morning there 
appeared before St. Martin, while he was in 
prayer, a most radiant form. The form, with 
a crown of gold upon his head sparkling with 
diamonds, said : " I am Christ ; fall down and 
worship me." St. Martin looked into the face : 
it was radiant ; he looked at the robe : it was 
gorgeous ; but when he looked at the hands, he 
saw no. marks of the nails, and he said: 



248 Milk an d Meat. 

M Avaunt, thou devil ; though as an angel of light 
thou hast come, I will not worship thee." Watch 
for that modern strategy of the devil which 
brings before men the radiant form of Christ 
without any print of the nails, that exalts the life 
of Christ at the expense of His death, and thus 
leaves out the keystone in the arch of Salvation. 
Without it the arch cannot stand much of a 
strain. An engineer took a contract for the 
building of a bridge in a mountain district, and 
spent about forty thousand dollars upon it. He 
had finished one of the arches all except the 
keystone, and when the hour came for the men 
to quit work, he said to them : " I should like to 
have you work four or five hours beyond time 
to-night, for if I should leave that arch as it 
is, and the flood should come, all our work wall 
be sw r ept away." But the men said the flood 
would not come, and, besides, they were not 
going to work over time. But the flood did 
come before morning and swept that arch 
away. It was all right except the keystone, 
and, lacking the keystone, it lacked everything. 
Lacking one thing is a great lack when that 
one thing is life itself. Let no evil spirit, my 
friend, cajole you into believing that you can 



Voices from Calvary. 249 

bridge the river of judgment and enter Para- 
dise without the keystone of the sacrifice of 
Christ. 



III. Listen again, and you will hear a 
Voice Mellow and Sweet as an Angel's 
Harp. It is the Voice of Natural 
Affection. 

"Woman, behold thy son!" " Behold thy 
mother!" Christ on the cross has made the 
Christian home and sanctified the relation of 
husband and wife, parent and child, brother 
and sister. At the request of Jesus, John took 
Mary to his home. Indeed, Christ on the cross 
has made every destitute woman " My mother," 
and every destitute man " My brother," and 
every destitute boy " My child." The ancient 
place, where the family abode, was cheerless and 
cold. The father was a tyrant, the mother a 
slave, the children chattels. Canon Farrar has 
shown that in all classic poetry there is no 
reference to the pleasures of childhood, and 
for the very good reason that in pagan lands 
the child had little pleasure. Mother and home, 
which we now associate with heaven, were born 



250 Milk and Meat. 

of God through the pangs of Christ on the 
cross. Better still, these sweet relations of 
the Christian home have been widened until 
they include the whole family of God. "Who- 
soever shall do the will of My Father in heaven, 
the same is My brother, sister, and mother." 

During the Civil War a mother heard that her 
son was sick in a hospital, and she hastened to 
where he was. But the surgeon said he was 
too sick to stand the excitement of her visit. 
She entreated him, however, to let her go and 
sit by his side, promising not to speak a word. 
"Well," said the surgeon, "if you will not 
speak a word, you may go." So she went in 
and sat by the side of the wounded sleeping 
boy ; but she could not resist the temptation 
to rub his brow softly.. As soon as her hand 
touched him, he said, " Mother ;" he knew the 
touch. What was it that made him know that 
touch ? It was something that came from 
Christ on the cross, which had so sanctified the 
relation of mother . and son as to make him 
carry in mind the memory of her loving touch. 
Expand this thought till it includes the whole 
family of God, and you have a slight concep- 
tion of the unifying and sanctifying power of 



Voices from Calvary. 251 

the dying Christ. It is unselfish ministry glo- 
rified. 



IV. The Voice of the Soul's Need. 

" My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken 
Me ? " It is through Jesus Christ on the cross 
that the voice of the soul in need of God can 
find utterance. Nothing can satisfy the soul but 
God. Wealth, position, gratified ambition, will 
not do it. The infinite God meets our infinite 
need ; through Christ on the cross the need 
is made known and supplied. Jesus asked 
a dangerous question : " Why ? " But He clung 
to the Father in love and faithfulness, while 
He asked it. Christ on the cross is an interro- 
gation point and a period. It appeals to God 
for a reason for the lonely sufferings of human- 
ity, and is itself an answer to the question. 
Christ suffers thus that others may not suffer 
for their sins, and that He may put Himself in 
loving touch with all who suffer from any 
cause. Bring all your whys to God through 
the Crucified, while you cling to Him in love, 
and He will answer them sooner or later. But 
I hasten to the next voice — 



252 Milk and Meat. 

V. The Voice of Bodily Want. 

"I thirst." What! is Christ on the cross a 
prayer to God for the satisfaction of my physi- 
cal wants ? He is ; and that means a great 
deal to some, whose life is a battle for bread — 
who know what it is to suffer hunger. It is a 
great comfort to know that Christ on the cross 
is the cry of humanity to God for the supply 
of bodily need. The body is as dear to Him 
as the soul,* 

VI. And now, Clear as a Clarion, rings 
out the Voice of Victory. 

"It is finished." " Sin, when it is finished, 
bringeth forth death ;" the suffering of Jesus, 
when it is finished, brings forth life and vic- 
tory. Here is our starting-point. We begin 
at Calvary with victory. He died in our stead, 
and we shout by faith, " It is finished." Sal- 
vation complete is offered to us. And now 
listen to the definition of the Christian's death 
as it comes to us from the cross : " Father, 
into Thy hands I commend my spirit." The 
darkened scene, symbol of the darkened soul ; 






Voices from Calvary. 



-do 



the cries of anguish, forsaken of God — that is 

death. But the Christian has not to die. 

Christ died for him. He simply commends 

his spirit to God. To him 

"There is no death : what seems so is transition ; 
This life of mortal breath 
Is but the suburb of the life elysian, 
Whose portal we call death." 

The death of Jesus is truly the death of 
death. Ours is a " departure," and the word 
means loosing anchor that the ship may sail 
out of a landlocked harbor into a broader sea. 



XXIII. 
CHRIST'S EARTHLY GLORY. 

"This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, 
and manifested forth His glory. " — John 2 : it. 

A STUDY of this miracle will give us a 
glimpse of the true glory of our Lord while 
upon earth. 

I. We see the Glory of His Social Na- 
ture. 

Jesus was no ascetic. He did not shut Him- 
self between four walls, barring out the world. 
He was truly in the world, though not of it. 
While bearing the sorrows of the community, 
He shared equally their joys. He broke up 
several funerals, but never a feast. He pro- 
moted the right kind of festivity. He came 
to increase our joys and diminish our sorrows, 
and He knows as no other does how to make 

254 



* Christ's Earthly Glory. 255 

our very sorrows channels of joy. W: are not 
surprised, therefore, to find Him at a marriage 
feast mingling with the people, and showing 
forth the glory of His social nature. 

The world gets the social power of many 
Christians. They give to God their hearts, 
they say, their money, much of their time, but 
their environment compels them to yield the 
tribute of their social influence to the world. 
The social life of every Christian should show 
forth the glory of Christ. 

II. We see the Glory of His Power. 

It was quietly displayed ; no outward show. 
He simply willed, and it was done. " The 
conscious water saw its Lord and blushed. " 
Such is the glory of Christ's power to-day. It 
displays itself not in the tempest, the earth- 
quake, or the fire, but in the still small voice. 
The great powers of nature are invisible and 
inaudible. We wonder at thundering Niagara, 
and yet the vital forces of the forest draw up- 
ward many times more water than pours over 
Niagara Falls. The quiet working of nature 
that lifts the clouds and distils the rain, giv- 



2?o Milk and Meat. 

ing life and beauty to meadow, field, and 
dower, displays the true glory of God. The 
heavens declare His glory by quietly shining, 
and the firmament showeth His handiwork 
without making ado over it, 

III. We see the Glory oe His Sympathy. 

Sympathy with the embarrassed and per- 
plexed. Here was a family with more guests 
than they expected, and their supplies ran 
short. The Lord comes just in time to relieve 
their embarrassment. It suggests to us that 
Christ is ever sympathetic with the little wor- 
ries and perplexities of life. It is easier to 
bear a great calamity than these little irrita- 
tions. I venture to say that one of you wives 
could bear the death of your child with more 
equanimity than you could endure the embar- 
rassment which your husband would bring upon 
you by coming in just at dinner-time with sev- 
eral prominent friends, for whom you were not 
prepared. Now, would it not be difficult to 
show yourself amiable and gentle under such 
circumstances? Stanley says that he did not 
fear the lions and elephants of the African 



Christ 's Earthly Glory? 257 

forest as much as the " jiggers" and the ants. 
They killed more men than the savages. \Ve 
have read of a battle against cannibals gained 
by the use of tacks. They had taken posses- 
sion of a whaling vessel and bound the man 
who was left in care of it. The crew, on 
returning, saw the situation, and scattered 
upon the deck of the vessel the tacks, which 
penetrated the bare feet of the savages, and 
sent them howling into the sea. They were 
ready to meet lance and sword, but they could 
not overcome the tacks on the floor. We 
brace ourselves up against great calamities. 
The little tacks of life, scattered along our 
way, piercing our feet and giving us pain, are 
hard to bear. A prominent pastor in Brook- 
lyn was absorbed studying the question of 
socialism, when his wife came in with despair 
on her face, and said she wanted advice about 
the servants. " Oh, my dear," he replied, " I 
cannot give my time to little matters like do- 
mestic service. I am trying to solve the social 
problem of the universe." "Well," replied the 
wife, "you solve the problem in the kitchen, 
and I will promise you to solve the problem of 
the universe in twenty-four hours." Really, it 



Milk and Meat. 

is easier to dispose of these great questions 
which cover the world than it is to meet and 
successfully overcome the little worries which 
present themselves day by day. 

IV. We see the Glory of His Method. 

The world's method is to give the best wine 
first and keep the worst for the last. We see 
that in the experience of the drunkard. He 
has a time of jollity and what he calls happi- 
ness for a few years, but the end is delirium 
tremens, death : the good wine first and the 
bad last. How forcibly this was illustrated in 
the life of Landseer, the great animal-painter 
— a man before whose works of genius people 
in the art galleries of Europe stand to-day in 
rapt admiration ! Near the close of his life 
he went around from place to place with swol- 
len nose and bleared eyes, the pity of friends 
and the scorn of enemies. Byron gave the 
world's version when he wrote : 

''My days are in the yellow leaf : 

The flower, the fruit of life is gone ; 
The worm, the canker, and the grief 
Are mine alone." 



Christ's Earthly Glory. 259 

" Beau Brummel " put it in not quite so 
poetical a form when, after he had danced 
with princesses and frittered away his life, he 
pointed to a dog lying in the sun, and said, 
"I wish I was that dog." These men of 
the world had the good wine first and the 
bitter dregs last. Christ may require of us 
self-denial, toil, struggle, patience. There may 
come into our lives sickness and death. We 
may have truly a hard time of it ; but, de- 
pend upon it, the good time will come to the 
Christian, and these severe experiences will 
make the coming glory all the brighter. In 
what striking contrast with the sentiments of 
Byron and Brummel is the experience of Paul: 
" I have fought a good fight, I have finished 
my course, I have kept the faith : henceforth 
there is laid up for me a crown of righteous- 
ness " ! The " henceforth " is the Christian's 
good wine. His life may be a battle to fight, 
a race to run, a charge to keep ; but victory 
will crown the battle : the prize is at the end 
of the race, and the "Well done " from the 
Master's lips will make us glad that we kept 
the charge He committed to us. 



XXIV. 
GOD'S IDEAL OF CHARACTER. 

" This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'' — 
Matt. 3:17. 

THERE is a lake in Switzerland in which the 
traveller may see reflected trees and houses in 
the distance that are themselves out of sight. 
Jesus Christ is God brought down to our level — 
God made thinkable, put within the compass of 
our highest thought. The very highest thought 
of man is man. We try to think of something 
higher, and we make it a monster. We think 
of angels, and they are men : and there isn't 
any conception that we are capable of higher 
than man. God puts Himself within our high- 
est conception that He may be thinkable to 
us, and thus brought near. He is a Spirit. 
Well, I cannot think pure spirit. As soon as 
I try, it assumes a ghostly shape. It must 

have some tangible form. But I can think a 

260 



God f s Ideal of Character. 261 

man ; I have some conception of the human 
form, the human attributes, human thought, 
feeling, affection, and motive. So that God 
puts Himself within the compass of our con- 
ception by becoming incarnate in Jesus Christ. 
But Christ is more than God ; He is a man — 
not God humanized, nor man deified, but God 
and man ; and I am permitted to think of 
Him as man just as truly as if He were not 
God, and as God just as truly as if He were 
not man. As God He is the Wonder-worker, 
and when I need His omnipotent power I 
come to Him as God. As man He is the Sym- 
pathizer, bearing our infirmities ; and when I 
need sympathy I come to Him as man. We 
have in the text God's ideal of character ; in 
looking down upon this character-picture, re- 
flected in the lake of humanity, He sees that 
in it which pleases Him: " This is My beloved 
Son, in whom I am well pleased." 

I. His Ideal of Purity. 

" Such an High Priest became us who is 
holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from 
sinners." 



262 Milk and Meat. 

The microscopic view of His enemies was 
placed upon Him, His friends studied Him. 
and all agree with Pilate when he says, " I 
find no fault in Him." He was pure, and it 
was not the kind of purity that has to be 
treated like a hot-house plant — put away in a 
cell to keep the weather from it : it was a 
purity that came in contact with impurity ; 
that could stand the test of exposure. He 
was not a man of books ; He never wrote a 
book. He was a man of men. He was a man 
that touched bad men, and lost His very repu- 
tation from the fact that He was a friend of 
publicans and sinners. He stood not only the 
test of contact, — a great Gulf 'Stream flowing 
through an ocean of pollution without mingling 
with its waters, — but He stood the fire test. 
You cannot tell whether gold is pure or not 
by just touching it, but, to test its purity, you 
must put it in the furnace. Jesus Christ for 
forty days was put in the furnace — shall I 
say, of perdition ? — with the engineer of the 
bottomless pit to keep hot the fires, and no 
dross was found. Now, if you try to imitate 
me, ten to one you will see all my faults be- 
fore you see any virtues. We can catch the 



God 's Ideal of Character. 263 

discord better than the harmonies ; and the 
old gnarl on the tree will attract more atten- 
tion than the most beautiful symmetry of trunk 
and branches. 

I remember hearing a sermon once on the 
resurrection of Christ. It was a hot August 
evening, and right in the midst of the sermon 
a black beetle came through the window, 
lighted on the preacher's forehead, and re- 
mained there twenty minutes. That is all of 
the sermon I remember to this day — the black 
beetle on the man's forehead ! It was the only 
bad thing about it, but it attracted more at- 
tention than all the good. There is no bad in 
Christ, to divert our attention ; so that we 
may exert all the powers within us to attain 
the good. The perfection of the Model in- 
spires us to try to reach it. 

A little company of us climbed a hill near 
Asheville, N. C. We soon became weary and 
sat down to rest. Another party of us 
climbed Black Mountain, nine hours of 
struggle over stones and through the roughest 
paths in all the mountains ; and yet we did 
not feel much wearied, because we had before 
us the prospect of such a view as no poet 



264 Milk and Meat. 

ever sang and no painter's brush ever por- 
trayed. The grandeur of the scene before us 
inspired us to greater effort. 

II. Christ is God's Ideal of Sympathy. 

He sympathized with the sorrowful. He wept 
with Mary and Martha at the grave of Laza- 
rus. He was a man of sorrows and ac- 
quainted w r ith grief, and He understood the sor- 
row of every heart as you and I cannot. 

I tried this afternoon to comfort a poor 
wife whose husband had committed suicide ; 
but my words to her were cold, and she 
turned around and said, " My dear man, you 
don't know anything about it," while she 
shrieked and tore her hair with a grief that I 
never felt. She told the truth : I did not 
know anything about it. But I could tell her 
of Jesus, who did know all about it. 

Jesus is sympathetic, not only with our sor- 
rows, but our joys. He went to the marriage 
feast as readily as to the funeral. His heart 
was warm toward rich and poor. He was not 
repelled by the blind beggar, so ragged that 
he threw aside his old cloak as he came into 



God 's Ideal of Character. 265 

His presence. With the young man of wealth, 
well dressed, the culture of the times in his 
face and on his lip, Jesus is just as sympa- 
thetic. Looking upon the crowd as sheep 
having no shepherd, He had compassion ; and 
after midnight till one, two, and three o'clock 
in the morning, He sits by the side of a 
learned Jewish rabbi, explaining to him the 
way of life, sympathizing with his struggles 
and his doubts. He sympathized with the 
ignorant and with the learned. He loved 
people; He was "the Son of Man," the Son 
of humanity ; and as such He is our model 
of sympathy. 

III. We have in Christ God's Ideal of 
Prayerfulness. 

He prayed on the Mount of Transfiguration, 
and while He prayed the form of His coun- 
tenance was changed, as light streamed from 
it. It was just before a great exaltation. He 
prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, and while 
He prayed the form of His countenance was 
again changed, as sorrow and bloody sweat 
streamed from it. He prayed in the sunlight, 



266 Milk and Meat. 

He prayed under the cloud : and you and I 
need most to pray when we are depressed, and 
when we are exalted ; when we are apt to 
despair, and when we are apt to get proud. 
In the valley amid the shadows, and on 
the mountain-top amid the gleams of glory, 
we need most to be prayerful. If any man 
on earth could afford to live without prayer, 
it was Christ. But He prayed, because as a 
man He needed what only prayer could bring; 
and there was no make-believe about it. That 
scene in the garden was no tragedy acted 
merely for our instruction. It was real prayer, 
and in answer to it He received from the 
Father the ministry of angels He needed. 

IV. We have also in Christ God's Ideal 
of Greatness. 

We know what the world calls greatness. 
Caesar was great, because he laid all the w 7 orld 
under tribute. Napoleon was great, because in 
his day he was the most powerful man living. 
Men are great who rise above others ; great in 
proportion to the number of other men that 
they can make their servants. Who is the 



God 's Ideal of Character. 267 

greatest politician in New York ? The man 
who can influence the most men at the polls. 
Who is the greatest statesman in the United 
States ? The man that wields the greatest 
power for any idea or political party. Who is 
the greatest man financially? The man that 
has the most dollars, with which he can wield 
an influence almost irresistible. What the 
world calls greatness is getting above people, 
and making them tributary to us. 

On the other hand, the greatness that Jesus 
Christ sets before us is not rising above men, 
but getting under men and lifting them up. 
It is not making other men tributary to us, 
but it is our becoming tributary to other men. 
The greatness Jesus Christ taught is in pro- 
portion to the ministry that we render to 
others, and not to the ministers that we make 
to ourselves. " He came not to be ministered 
unto, but to minister." " If any man would be 
great among you, let him become the servant 
of all." 

I should like to strike a keynote just here for 
church work. What is the mission of a 
church ? Is it to help other people or to get 
other people to help it ? 



Milk and Meat. 

Longfellow's "Excelsior" is good enough 
poetry, but I never did sympathize very much 
with that fellow for freezing to death on the 
mountain-side while trying to climb above 
others. If he had been striving to lift some- 
body else, it would have made his blood cir- 
culate better, and kept him alive. 

You may have seen a blind man standing on 
a street corner in New York, selling papers. 
A gentleman passing by one day met a ragged 
newsboy with a bundle of papers in his hand, 
right near this old blind man's stand. " I want 
a paper,'' he said to the boy. " I can't sell 
you any papers here," replied the urchin. 
" Why not ? " asked the man. " Because this 
is Blindy's corner." He went up and bought 
a paper from the blind man, and then turned 
to the boy and said, " Why is it that you will 
not sell me a paper?" "Well," said he, "it is 
just this : we boys got together, and we said 
that Blindy could not work for himself, and 
we passed a resolution that, if any boy sold a 
paper there, we would lick him : he has got to 
have that corner for himself." I don't know 
where that boy goes to Sunday-school ; I don't 
know his mother; but I know one thing — he is 



God^s Ideal of Cliaracter. 269 

greater in the estimation of Christ than the 
men who have become famous by their selfish 
grasping. 



We see the Climax of this Greatness in 
Jesus Christ on the Cross. - 

" Why," said an infidel to me, " you tell me 
that God can be pleased with that bloody scene 
on the cross. I could not be pleased to look 
upon my only child suffer thus, and I am not 
nearly as perfect as God." My reply was : 
" Friend, I could not love or respect a God 
that would not be pleased with such a scene as 
that." Let me illustrate. You remember 
that scene in a German village : A blacksmith 
could be seen hour after hour, if you had 
looked through his shop window, chained to 
the anvil, foaming at the mouth, while the 
blood ran from his wrists. He was writhing 
in madness. That was indeed horrible. I 
would fain forget it. But I learn that the * 
good blacksmith was sitting one day in the 
village post-office, with his neighbors' children 
gathered around him, when a great mad dog 
with foaming mouth and glaring eyes appeared 



/ 



2 jo Milk and Meat. 

in the door. He springs up and throttles the 
infuriated beast, but not until the fatal poison 
goes into his own blood. When I have 
learned that the noble man put the chains 
upon his own hands as a protection to his 
neighbors, my horror turns into admiration, 
and I should like to build the blacksmith a 
monument higher than Napoleon's in Paris. 

I read in a chapter of Italian history of a 
poor girl in a dungeon, on a damp floor, in a 
dark room, with scanty fare, her life ebbing 
out. One year she stays, three years she stays, 
six years she stays : and after the sixth year 
there is a corpse on the marble floor. They 
throw it into a box and bury it in a potter's 
It horrifies me. but when I turn over a 
page I read that the girl was sent to prison 
because she had a secret she would not divulge. 
and that the first day of every month an officer 
of the government would come in and say : " If 
you will give us the secret we know you 
possess, we will set you free." But she stead- 
fastly refused. What was the secret ? It was 
connected with the honor and the life of her 
own beloved father : and for his sake she 
lingered and died upon the marble floor in the 



God 's Ideal of Character. 2 7 1 

dark room. Now I feel that I should like to 
build a monument to the noble Italian girl 
higher and grander than St. Peter's Cathedral. 

I look upon another scene: the mocking; the 
crown of thorns ; the weakened body bearing a 
heavy cross, and sinking beneath it— hands and 
feet adjusted, while the nails are driven, crush- 
ing through, the broken heart crying out : 
" My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken 
Me?" As I look, the elements grow dark and 
an earthquake shakes the earth. I can but 
say, " That is horrible/' I am not pleased 
with it. But when I turn over the page and 
read that it was not for Himself, but for other 
people, that that crown of thorns was worn, 
that the heavy cross was borne, that His feet 
and hands were pierced, and that heart was 
broken ; and when, reading a little further, I 
find that not for people in general, but for me, 
was all this suffered, — my horror turns to ad- 
miration, adoration, love, and my enthusiasm 
knows no bounds. 

Shall I go to the village in Germany and 
ask the parents of the children saved from the 
mad dog what they think of the memory of 
the blacksmith ; shall I go to Italy and ask 



2 72 J////' 0#rf Meat 

the father for whom that noble girl died what 
he thinks of her who sacrificed her life for 
him, — and will they be base enough to refuse 
to express their gratitude ? 

The cross, with its agony, holds before us 
the climax of true greatness. A God that 
could look upon it and not be pleased would 
be unworthy of the respect, much less the love, 
of noble minds. 

More than that, friends : if you accept the 
principle of my infidel acquaintance, you will 
go to Washington and tear down that monu- 
ment, oVer five hundred feet high, as you 
shout : " Blot out the memory of Washington ! 
Forget the deeds of the men that died in the 
Revolution ! Let all martyrs be forgotten ! 
Let the names of those that shaped this govern- 
ment, and gave us religious and civil liberty, be 
no more remembered ! " We are living upon 
the fruits of their suffering, upon the results of 
their heroic self-denial. Worse still: if you 
make up your mind never to live upon the suf- 
fering of others, you will never think with 
gratitude even of your mother. 

But, if what I have said is true, I am lost ; 
there is no hope for me. Only the kind of 



God's Ideal of Character. 273 

purity and sympathy and prayerfulness and 
greatness that is manifest in Jesus Christ can 
ever please God. I am not holy, I am selfish, 
and I am not so prayerful as I ought to be; I 
am not in sympathy with all men, like Him: 
and if I must bring to God a character as spot- 
less and as sympathetic and unselfish as the 
character of Jesus Christ, there is no hope for 
me for this world or the next. Yet as I 
reflect I am cheered, because God tells me 
that I can bring before Him the character of 
Christ ; if I will bring in the arms of my faith 
His ideal, He will accept me. 

I come, pleading God's own ideal of char- 
acter; if I will be pleased with what pleases 
Him, He will be pleased with me ; He will 
put the merit of His ideal to my account, and 
He will begin at once to lift me toward the 
realization of His ideal. 

A lady said to me : " I am not satisfied with 
myself. I have been praying and weeping 
and seeking rest, but all to no purpose." 
" Are you satisfied with the Lord Jesus ? " 
I asked. She said, " Certainly." "Well," said 
I, "you and I belong to the same company — 
dissatisfied with ourselves, but satisfied with 



274 Milk and Meat. 

the Lord ; and if I know anything about it, 
that is salvation." 

By and by God will look on us, and be 
pleased, not simply because we are pleased 
with what pleases Him, but because of what 
we are. He will make real in us His ideal 
in Christ. " It doth not yet appear what we 
shall be, but we know that, when He shall 
appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see 
Him as He is " — not as He was. Some of us 
are a little like Him as He was — the man of 
sorrows and acquainted with grief. But the 
promise is that we shall be like Him as He is — 
not the sufferer on the cross, but the God-man 
on the throne. "We shall be like Him, for 
we shall see Him as He is ; " and, I submit, 
that is a prospect worthy of our constant 
thought and our brightest hope. 

The other day I went to see a working-man 
about forty-five years of age. I said: "Are 
you a Christian?" He replied: "Yes, I have 
been trusting the Lord for about thirty years." 
" Bright, is it?" "Bright as the promise of 
God ; but I am in great suffering," and he 
turned over from me, excruciating agony filling 
every part of his nervous system until he could 



God's Ideal of Character. 275 

hardly endure it. He said : " I am in pain, sir, 
but I have the peace that passeth understand- 
ing. My infidel doctor came in yesterday, and 
said : ' There is no hope, sir. I have done 
everything I can for you.' I said: 'Doctor, 
your no hope is the brightest hope I ever had ; 
sure as you live, sir, that is the sweetest sen- 
tence you ever spoke at my bedside. I have 
been lying here in pain. In a few days, if you 
are right, I w r ill be beyond the reach of pain.'" 
The infidel's no hope at death is the dawning 
of hope to every Christian man ; it is the dawn- 
ing of the hope, bright as heaven, that the 
character of Jesus Christ, God's ideal, is cer- 
tain to be ours by and by. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



022 169 619 



